The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I.,
No. 11, July, 1835, by Various

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Title: The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 11, July, 1835

Author: Various

Editor: Edward Vernon Sparhawk

Release Date: December 19, 2018 [EBook #58497]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, JULY 1835 ***




Produced by Ron Swanson

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER:

EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

THE FINE ARTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I, NUMBER 11

PROFESSOR BEVERLEY TUCKER'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO HIS CLASS

LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: by a young Scotchman

TO ——

PARAPHRASE of a figure in the first volume of Eugene Aram

TO MY SISTERS: by Rosicrucius

LINES: by J. M. C. D.

GRAYSON GRIFFITH

LINES written in Mrs. ——'s Album

THE DIAMOND CHAIN: by Questus

WHERE SHALL THE STUDENT REST?

THE AGE OF REPTILES

ANSWER to Willis's "They may talk of your Love in a Cottage"

EPIGRAM

VISIT TO THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS, during the summer of 1834 (No. III)

MY FIRST NIGHT IN A WATCHHOUSE (Chap. I): by Pertinax Placid

DISSERTATION on the characteristic differences between the sexes (No. II)

LIONEL GRANBY (Chap. IV)

TO H. W. M.: by Morna

LINES written on being accused of coldness of character and manners by some friends—1830: by E. A. S.

ON THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL OF THE ASYLUM AT HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: by L. H. S.

AN ELEGY sacred to the memory of the infant children of S. M. and C. W. S. of Campbell county, Va.: by Frederic Speece

SONNET: by Alex. Lacey Beard

TO MARY: by E. A. P.

THE VISIONARY—A TALE: by Edgar A. Poe

PETER'S MOUNTAIN

THE DUEL: by E.

LINES: by Morna

MY NATIVE HOME: by Geo. Watterston

MEMOIR OF THE AMBITIOUS LAWYER (No. I): by Narrator

LITERARY NOTICES
    THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, No. II.
    THE CONQUEST OF FLORIDA, by Hernando de Soto: by Theodore Irving
    CHANCES AND CHANGES, a domestic story: by the author of "Six Weeks on the Loire."
    NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, No. LXXXVIII, July 1835
    AMERICAN REPUBLICATION OF FOREIGN QUARTERLIES—The London, Edinburg and Westminster Reviews for April, 1835
    MY LIFE: by the author of Tales of Waterloo, &c.
    BELFORD REGIS, or Sketches of a Country Town: by Miss Mitford

EDITORIAL REMARKS

TO CORRESPONDENTS

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

PROFESSOR BEVERLEY TUCKER'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS TO HIS CLASS.

The following correspondence and address have been sent us for publication, by the members of Professor Tucker's class at William and Mary College. We give place to them with pleasure, and commend the admonitions of the amiable and learned professor to all young gentlemen about to enter upon the practice of the law. The friendly and paternal spirit of his advice, gives an uncommon interest to this production, and shows that his have indeed been "labors of love."

Much Esteemed Friend:—

I am requested, in the name of your class, to solicit you either to have your Valedictory Address published, or deliver it to us for that purpose. I sincerely hope for your compliance; and although our exercises for the present session have ended—although we no longer stand in the relation of students and professor—and notwithstanding we are about to part (some of us) perhaps forever, we must hope that the tie which has bound us together for the last eight months, instead of weakening, will continue to "grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength," and that the day is far distant when that union shall break. Go where we may, a fond recollection of your past services will be long cherished by us. We know the interest you have felt, and still feel in our welfare, and I hope your exertions to promote the interest of those who have been placed under your care, are duly appreciated. You have done your duty, and all that has been wanting must be charged to us. You have given us a chart by which to steer our political ship, and should we succeed in stemming the current of opposition, may you live to enjoy our triumph. Permit me now, in conclusion, to tender you our united sentiments of the highest esteem and respect.

My Dear French:—

I have great pleasure in complying with the request of my young friends, so far as to hand the lecture to the printer. I am not aware of any merit in it, such as your partiality sees, to justify me in permitting you to incur the expense of publication. But in that partiality and its source, I have more pleasure and more pride than I could have in any composition. Self-love will not permit me to believe that I possess the friendship of those who have been placed under my care without having deserved it. Self-love is "much a liar," but is always believed; and she could hardly tell me a tale more acceptable. To acquit myself faithfully and satisfactorily of the duties of a new and untried station, was the engrossing wish of my heart during the whole course. When I remember the manner in which my class went through their examination, and reflect on the pleasures of our intercourse, the marks of confidence which I continually received, and the affectionate feelings with which we part, I am sure I have not altogether failed. But I should be unjust to you, if I did not say that I am sensible how much your assiduity has done to supply the defects of my instructions.

May God bless and prosper you all, (for I speak to all,) and make your success in life not only honorable to yourselves and me, but to your friends and country. May each of you be a gem added to the bright crown with which the glory of her sons encircles the gray head of the venerable and kindly old college. If ever there was a heart in walls of brick and mortar, it is surely there; and cold is he whose heart does not warm to it. In her name, once again I say God bless you.

ADDRESS.

Neither duty nor inclination will permit me to take leave of you, young gentlemen, without offering a few remarks, of general application to the subject of our late studies.

We part, perhaps to meet no more. Some of you go into the active business of life, some to pursue your researches under other guidance. To both alike, my experience may enable me to suggest thoughts, and to offer advice, which may be found of some practical value.

Whether your immediate destination is to the bar or the closet, you will alike find the necessity of continuing your studies. To give them such a direction as may be profitable and honorable to you, is my sole remaining duty.

There are many branches of the law which you will still find time to investigate at leisure. Many years will probably elapse, before you will be called to take the sole management of any case involving valuable rights or intricate questions. The land law, and the perplexing minutiæ of chancery jurisdiction, will be of this description. When engaged in such cases, you will commonly find yourself associated with older and abler counsel, from whom you will then obtain, at a glance, more insight into these difficult subjects than I have been able to afford. Under such guidance, you will have opportunities to investigate the law, with an eye to its application to your case. You will then see the practical value of the principles with which you have been made acquainted, and may execute your first tasks in that line, as successfully as if you were already imbued with every thing but that knowledge which nothing but study and practice combined can afford.

But though, in regard to matters of this sort, a general acquaintance with the grand principles of the law is as much as you can be expected to carry to the bar, there are other duties which you must assume, in a complete state of preparation. Let me particularize a few of these.

You will find it then of the utmost importance, to be thoroughly acquainted with the science of pleading. I have not concealed from you that the loose practice of our courts dispenses habitually with many of its rules, and has done much to confuse them all. But they still retain all their truth, all their reasonableness, and much of their authority. The courtesy of the bar will indeed save you from the consequences of any mistake you may make in the outset. But though this may screen your errors from the public eye, they will not escape the animadversion of your brethren. They will be prevented from forming such an estimate of your acquirements, as will lead them to recommend you to their clients, in the hope of obtaining from you valuable aid. It is by such recommendations that young men most frequently gain opportunities to make an advantageous display of talent, and an introduction into that sort of business which is, at once, a source of honor and profit.

It sometimes happens, (though, to the credit of the profession such occurrences are rare,) that a young man, on his first appearance at the bar, encounters adversaries who do not extend to him the forbearance which youth has a right to expect. He is taken at a disadvantage. His want of experience and readiness lays him open to a more practised opponent, who ungenerously strikes a blow by which his client is injured, and he himself is brought into disrepute. To him who is really deficient in capacity or acquirement, such an attack is sometimes fatal. To him who, on a fit occasion can retaliate on his adversary, it is of decisive advantage. Mankind are generally disposed to take sides with the weak and injured party, and to visit with their indignation any ungenerous abuse of accidental advantages. A young man therefore, thus assailed, is sure to have with him the sympathy of the profession and of the public. They look, for a time at least, with interest to his course. They are impatient to see him redress himself; and, until he has done so, all the rules of comity and forbearance which generally regulate the practice, are suspended in his favor. He is free to take advantages of his ungenerous assailant, which, under other circumstances would be denounced as ungentlemanly. And they would be so, because they would be in violation of the covenanted rules of the profession. But between him and his adversary there is no such covenant. A state of war abrogates all treaties. It follows that all the maxims of courtesy which forbid any advantage to be taken of slips in pleading, do not restrain him; and he is free to hold the other up to all the strictness of the law. It is expected he should do so. If he does not, it is concluded that he does not know how. But if he has once carefully studied the science and made himself acquainted with its principles, he stands on strong ground, and sooner or later his triumph is sure. The older and more hackneyed his adversary, the greater his advantage; for it is true in law, as in morals, that evil practice vitiates the understanding. The habit of loose pleading unsettles the knowledge of the rules and principles of pleading, and many nice technicalities are totally forgotten. There is not, for example, one old county-court lawyer in a hundred, who remembers that $100 means nothing in pleading, and that a declaration in which the sum should be no otherwise expressed, would be so bad as to make it doubtful whether even the sovereign panacea of our late Statute of Jeofails would cure it. But though this be doubtful, there is no doubt that, on demurrer, it would be fatal. A demurrer then, being filed and submitted sub silentio, it is probable that such a defect would escape even the eye of the court. In that case a reversal of the judgment would be sure, and a triumph would be gained that would gratify the profession, and command the admiration of the multitude.

A thousand cases of the same sort might be suggested, where an old practitioner, though on his guard, (as he must be against one whom he has provoked to retaliation,) would, from a mere defect of memory, or the established influence of vicious practice, fall into blunders which would place him at the mercy of an adversary who has his learning more fresh about him. How many, for example, will remember where to stop the defence, in drawing a plea in abatement, or to the jurisdiction of the court? How many ever think of the necessity of entitling their pleadings? How many know how to take advantage of this defect, even when it occurs to them?

But though you should escape the attack of any illiberal practitioner, yet cases will occur, in which the nature of the controversy will require great accuracy in drawing out the pleadings to a precise and well defined issue. In such cases, no disposition to mutual or self-indulgence in the bar, can prevent the necessity of pleading correctly. In such cases, opportunities will be offered you of reciprocating the kindness of your seniors, by lending them the aid of your pen, and assisting them to recall forgotten technicalities. The value of such aids will raise you in their esteem, establish you in their regard, and ensure you their good offices. Out of such circumstances grow alliances which are strength and honor to both parties. A well read young lawyer, associated with one of less learning but more experience, sagacious, vigilant, and versed in human nature and the established though irregular routine of business, is like the lame man mounted on the shoulders of the blind. Their powers are not merely united; they are reciprocally multiplied; they fall together habitually. Their joint success commands confidence and practice, and finally the fruit of all their triumphs enures to the benefit of the survivor.

But there is another point of view in which an intimate knowledge of the rules and principles of pleading is of permanent advantage, notwithstanding all the looseness which our practitioners habitually indulge. It has been well said, that "the record is the lock and key of the law." You will often find that without this interpreter, the ancient books are sealed to you. It is by this alone that you will sometimes be able to discover the point really decided. The concise notes of the old reporters taken for the use of those already familiar with the great principles and leading maxims of the science of pleading, are perfectly unintelligible to the mere sciolist.

It often happens too, that a lawyer undertakes a suit or defence which cannot be sustained, and thus involves his client in unnecessary expense. Such blunders would often be avoided by a ready familiarity with the science of pleading. The attorney has but to ask himself, "how shall I frame the declaration or plea?" and the answer shows him the impossibility of making good his case. He advises accordingly; and, though the advice be at the moment unpalatable, it will be afterwards remembered with gratitude and respect. No reproach is keener or more just, than that of a client who has been decoyed into expensive litigation by the rapacity of the disingenuous, or the blunders of the unskilful. A place among those whose advice may be relied on, is the safest and most honorable at the bar. It cannot be lost without some great error. It gives a lien on posterity. The father hands down to the son a respect for his constant and faithful adviser. Friend communicates it to friend; neighbor to neighbor. The showy qualities which are the gift of nature to others, are neutralized by it. The plain man, destitute of such endowments, becomes the patron, the dispenser of business and benefits to him whose eloquence shakes the court—commands his gratitude, secures his friendship, and, on all admissible occasions, makes this envied talent his own.

There is another subject on which an ever ready preparation is even more indispensable than on the subject of pleading. I mean that of evidence. On this, of necessity, we have touched but lightly. It would be properly, one of the principal subjects of a second course. To stop short between a cursory notice of it and a thorough investigation, such as we have not had time to make, might mislead the student. He might overrate his knowledge if he found himself as well acquainted with that as with other branches of the law; and supposing he had enough, might venture to the bar without acquiring more. But this is a topic of which a superficial knowledge will not do, even at the beginning. It must be understood perfectly; it must be understood distinctly; it must be wrought into the very texture of the mind, and ever present there. The occasions on which this knowledge is wanted, can rarely be anticipated. They start up like fire from the ground, and he whose information is not various, exact and ready, is liable to be disconcerted, embarrassed and disgraced. They often occur in those apparently plain cases, which the partiality of friends sometimes intrusts to the sole management of an untried lawyer. To be baffled, through want of skill in such cases, is to injure those who have sought to serve you. It mortifies and discourages your friends, and what is worse, it disheartens you.

You will be often employed too, to set aside an office judgment, and plead, pro forma, in a case admitting of no defence on the merits. In such a case, where nothing is expected, your adversary, however able, may be unprepared through some neglect of his client. Relying on your rawness and want of skill, he may venture to trial. You strike at the gap in his armor with the dexterity of a veteran; he is nonsuited, and your success is the immediate source of honor and emolument. You find yourself gazed at, followed, and employed by those who never saw you before, and who know nothing of you but that, in a plain case, admitting of no meritorious defence, you had just baffled one of the first men at the bar. The consequence is, you are presently engaged in business of more consequence, and if you acquit yourself well in it, your practice is established and your fortune made.

To these two subjects then, of pleading and evidence, I advise you to apply so much attention as to make you feel sure that you understand them thoroughly. Having done this, let them be again revised immediately before you go to the bar, and let them, in all the early stages of your practice, be the constant objects of your attention and study. You can never understand them too well, and your knowledge of the last especially, can never be too ready. It is by ignorance on these topics, that men lose causes they ought to gain. Such defeats are disgraceful and ruinous. When the right of the case is against you, it is your misfortune; but you are never blamed. But to be defeated with law and fact both on your side, is to be weighed in the balance and found wanting.

And here let me say a word of the cases which you lose, because the law is against you. For these there is one short rule. "Though you lose your case, do not lose your temper." It is easy for a young man to argue himself into a conviction of the justice of his client's case; but if you do not make others see it too, you must learn to distrust that conviction. Remember that the argument which has convinced you, without convincing others, came to you through the favorable medium of self-love. A young man who doubts the justice of his first cause just after having argued it, must be either very dull, or very philosophical, or the case must have been utterly desperate. On the other hand, remember that the judge is rarely exposed to any undue bias. He can scarcely ever have a motive to do wrong; and he is a man of tried integrity, practised to resist and overcome the influence of such motives. Then remember that he is old, learned and experienced, selected from among his fellows for his endowments; and thus learn to acquiesce in his decisions with that cheerful complacency which so well becomes a young man, distrustful, as all young men should be, of his own judgment.

Above all things, never stimulate the dissatisfaction of your client. You tell him he is wronged. He believes you. You blame the judge. He divides the blame between the judge and you. Was the judge prejudiced against you? Do not say so, or men will not employ you to practice before him. Was he ignorant? was he dull? was he inattentive? You had the same chance to awaken his attention, to rouse his dulness, to enlighten his ignorance, as your adversary. If you did not succeed, another might, and your client will try another the next time. Let him believe, if he can bring himself to do so, that he only failed because the law was against him, and there is nothing to prevent his trying you again. Better so, than to gratify him for the moment by catering to his evil passions, at the risque of injustice to another, and injury to yourself. Apart too from the injustice, prudence forbids that any blow be struck at men in power, which is not well aimed, and sure to take effect. He that throws up stones, endangers his own head. "He that spits against the wind," said Dr. Franklin, "spits in his own face."

There is another consideration to be regarded here. The profession is a unit. Its respectability depends on that of the head. It is an arch, of which the bench is the key-stone. Let them who should uphold it, withdraw their support, and all will fall together. Would you degrade the seat to which you aspire? Would you dim the lustre of that honor, which is to be the brightest reward of a life spent in the labors of your profession? Hardly more unwise is the youth, who would revoke the prerogatives of age, forgetting that he shall himself be old.

But there is a present advantage in a gentle and complacent acquiescence in the unfavorable decisions of the court. It engages the sympathy, the respect, and good will of all who witness it. Among others it bespeaks the regard of the judge himself. However impartial he may be, this will not be without its value. If he is seen to be your friend, men will employ you, in the hope that his friendship may produce a bias in your favor. Your very enemies will serve you, by charging him with partiality, in the hearing of those who may wish to avail themselves of it by engaging your services. Besides, man is but man. We lean to conviction from those we love. Why else is the eloquence of a lovely woman so persuasive? We may man ourselves against prejudice; but the very effort to do so unfixes the attention, and the words of one who is odious to us are lost in air. But the voice of a friend is music to the ear, and sinks into the mind. He is a poor metaphysician who undervalues the influence of the affections on the very sense of hearing.

It is of great importance, in this point of view, that you should not misapprehend the relation between the bar and bench. A young man entering into life, is apt to magnify the consequence and authority of office; and he naturally falls into the belief that the incumbent is disposed to presume upon it, and abuse its powers. There can be no greater mistake than to apply this notion to a judge. The beautiful fiction of Law, by which the members of the profession are considered as brethren, of whom the judge is but the elder, hardly deserves the name of fiction. There is no corps animated by a spirit so truly fraternal, nor is there any member of it to whose comfort this spirit is so essential, as the judge himself. Few men attain to that elevation, without learning that the sanction of judicial authority is opinion. The judge is armed indeed with the process of contempt. But what is its true use? To conciliate the forbearance of others by his forbearance in refraining from the use of it. In this view, it is right that he should have it. But his comfort, his respectability, the very stability of his office are secured, not by the power that he does, but that which he does not exercise. Depend on it, among all the brethren of your profession, you will find none to whom your friendship will be so desirable as the judge himself.

Remarks of the same sort may be made with regard to your intercourse with the members of the bar. You will find them for the most part gentlemen and friends, disposed to lead you gently by the hand. Requite their courtesy in kind. If an advantage is taken of you, I have told you how to retaliate. You will have the whole bar on your side. But such cases are rare. You will probably meet with nothing illiberal. None will crow at you until your spurs are fully grown. No sarcasm will be dealt out against you, unless by a junior like yourself. In such case, in general, pass it by. It will be thought that your self-respect restrains you from affording sport to the by-standers, and you will rise in the respect of others. Men naturally respect those who are seen to respect themselves. You may indeed be sometimes provoked to retort, by attacks which will make a retort necessary and proper. In that case, your previous habit of forbearance will stand your friend. It will dispose others to presume you to be in the right, and to approve your conduct. It will enable you to reflect; to do nothing rashly; to choose your words; to measure the force of your blow; and to strike without laying yourself open. To such rencounters apply the advice of Polonius to his son:

If you are compelled to strike, let no second blow be necessary, and you will not soon be called to give another.

I might multiply remarks of this sort without end, and perhaps with little profit to you; for it is too true, "that no man learns wisdom by another's experience." I am bound to own that it is not by the practice of these maxims that I have learned their value. But experience has perhaps convinced me of it somewhat sooner, because they were inculcated in my youth, by one whose advice I fear was never justly appreciated until his voice was hushed forever. My suggestions to you may answer the same end. If, when my head lies low, the recollection shall come to your minds accompanied by the feelings it awakens in mine, my labor will not be lost or unrewarded.

But there is one maxim learned in that same school, which no one who expects to thrive by his profession must neglect. The success of a lawyer and his honor as a man depend on his fidelity and punctuality. I need not recommend these to you. But a single auxiliary rule, in the observance of which there is perfect safety, may be of use.

"Whenever you receive money for a client, always consider that specific money as his. Set apart the identical dollars and cents, just as you received them, done up into a parcel labelled with his name, and accompanied by a statement showing the amount received and the balance due after deducting your fees and commissions. Let a counterpart of this statement be drawn up in a book kept for the purpose, and always carried with you; and at the foot of this counterpart, take your client's receipt." In this proceeding there is something level to the apprehension, and obvious to the senses of all men. It will engage confidence, and multiply in your hands that sort of business, which, if not the most honorable, is the least laborious, and not the least profitable.

And now, my young friends, we close a relation which has been to me one of the happiest of my life. God grant it may prove equally profitable to you. If it does not, the fault is in me. I have indeed the satisfaction to know that my exertions are appreciated by you, at more than their real value; and that wherever your lots may be cast, you will long remember the months we have spent together with feelings responsive to my own. It has been my endeavor to divest the subject of our studies of its dryness, and to render it, if possible, less unpalatable than you had expected to find it. The task was difficult, but I hope I have not altogether failed. I have felt it my duty too, to lay aside the pedagogue, and to disarm my office of all austerity. In doing this I had but to yield to my natural disposition. The rules of our institution indeed placed me in loco parentis. But the relation of an elder brother was more congenial to my feelings. I am happy to believe that it has been so filled, as to establish the sentiments appropriate to it in each of our minds; and that, when the infirmities of age shall overtake me, there is not one of you who would not extend an arm to stay my tottering steps, as there is not one on whose shoulder I would not lean with confidence.

But my method of instruction was not adopted merely because it suited my disposition. I believed it most appropriate to the subject of your studies. It in some measure prepares you to enter in its true spirit into that relation to the heads of your profession, of which I have spoken. You will find few judges to whom the authority of office will not be as irksome as it is to me; and it will be in your choice to establish, between yourselves and your brethren of the bar and bench, the same sentiments which make our separation at once pleasant and painful.

I cannot take leave of you without offering and inviting congratulations on the distinguished harmony which has pervaded every department of our venerable institution. It has been a complete fulfilment of the reciprocal pledges passed at the commencement of the course, "that you should be treated as gentlemen, and that you would so demean yourselves." How far this desirable end has been promoted by the peculiar character and structure of the society of this place, you are capable of deciding. We must have been unwise, not to avail ourselves of the aids afforded by the moral influence of a circle of gentlemen and ladies, intelligent, refined, polite and hospitable, zealous for the honor and order of the college and the happiness of its professors and students. It is this ever present influence that has enabled us to dispense with the rigor of discipline, elsewhere so necessary. It is this which enables William and Mary College to preserve its distinctive characteristics. In any other situation they would soon disappear. The city and the college have grown together. They are moulded on each other. Each is a part of each. Each is necessary to the other. You might learn as much, or more, elsewhere; but where else would you leave behind, from what other place would you carry with you so much of those kindly affections, the cultivation of which is not the least important part of education? On these we have determined to stake the usefulness, the permanency, and the prosperity of our institution, and in these we find a reward for our labors, which nothing can take away.

LETTERS ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

DEAR HENRY,—Mr. Paulding and Miss Sedgewick, are, in my opinion, inferior in genius to the American writers I mentioned in my last. They may be classed as the secondary novelists of this country, though in general literature, Paulding is equal if not superior to Cooper. His tales are usually short and want interest; but his characters are well sketched, his incidents natural, and his opinions and observations characterized by good sense. There is, however, an affectation of humor in what he writes, that does not please me. It seems to consist more in the employment of quaint terms and odd phrases, than in the incident or character itself, and would appear to be the result of an early and frequent perusal of the works of Swift and Rabelais. His productions are neat and sensible, but not very imaginative or striking. The interest or curiosity of the reader is never powerfully excited, but he never fails to please by the manner in which he conducts his plots; the easy and perspicuous style he employs, the clear and happy illustration of the vice or folly he holds up to indignation or scorn, and the successful though sometimes exaggerated developement of the character he wishes to portray. In both Paulding and Cooper there is an overwhelming American feeling, which bursts forth on all occasions, and which, to a foreigner, seems to partake of the nature of deep rooted prejudice. It results, however, I have no doubt, from an ardent love of country, increased perhaps by the silly contumelies and sarcasms of the reviewers and travellers of our country. Mr. Paulding has not displayed any great depth or expansion of mind in anything he has yet written, though he has tried his wing in both prose and verse. His forte is satire, which, like that of Horace, is more playful than mordant and bitter. The productions of Miss Sedgewick which I have seen, are remarkable for good sense, but without much vigor of imagination. She succeeds best in quiet life. The delineation of the workings of passion, and of stormy and powerful emotions, are beyond the reach of her powers; but what she attempts she always does well. Her plots are generally without complication, and display no great fertility of invention; the incidents are not very striking and the characters are sometimes tame, and occasionally extravagant. They are not like the delineations of Miss Edgeworth, or Miss Mitford. You cannot form an idea of the nationality of the individual she sketches, and would as soon take him for a native of any other country as of her own. There is a manifest defect in this particular, in all the novelists I have mentioned. With the exception of the Indians who are occasionally introduced, there is scarcely any difference between their Americans, and the inhabitants of other lands. Cooper has indeed presented a finer gallery of American characters than any other writer, especially in his sketches of the early settlers or pioneers; but his characters, except in a few instances, are not usually distinguished by striking national peculiarities. This may possibly originate from the singular fact that in this country where men are free to rove where inclination leads, and to be under no other restraint than that which religion, law, or decency imposes, there is less peculiarity of character or individuality, than in any other portion of the globe with which I am acquainted. They have not yet attempted to give as in England, sketches of American society as it now exists, or may have existed since the organization of their government. Whether such pictures would indeed be interesting I am not prepared to say; but from the society in which I have mingled, I do not think it has variety enough, or differs sufficiently from that of other civilized nations to render such pictures striking or amusing. Genius, however, can accomplish every thing, and might give to what appears to be vapid and ennuyant, some novelty and interest.

There are some other novelists in the United States, whose productions, as they have sunk, or are rapidly sinking into oblivion, it is scarcely necessary to name. One of these is a man of talent, who, you will recollect, was an occasional contributor to the literary periodicals of our country, while a resident there. I mean J. Neale. His romances, from their wildness and extravagance, have been but little read, and are now nearly forgotten. He still, however, employs his pen, I understand, in doing what he can to edify and amuse his countrymen. Novel reading has been legitimatized by Sir Walter Scott, and though his productions furnish an admirable standard, nothing in the nature of romance now goes amiss, and the demand for works of fancy seems to increase in proportion to the number issued from the press, and the food that is furnished. Although the Americans are great novel readers, there is not much of romance in their character. There is too much matter-of-fact about them; they are too calculating and money-making to serve the purposes of the novelist. They form but indifferent heroes and heroines of romance, and hence Cooper is obliged to resort to the sea to rake up pirates and smugglers, or to go back to the revolution or the early settlement of his country to find characters and incidents calculated to give verisimilitude and interest to his tales.

In dramatic literature, but little has yet been done in the United States. Few appear to have devoted much of their attention to dramatic composition. I have seen but ten or twelve American plays in the course of my researches; and these, though they possessed a good deal of merit, have been suffered to sink into neglect, and are rarely performed. A much larger number, however, would appear to have been written and prepared for the stage. According to a catalogue I have lately seen, no less than 270 dramatic pieces have either been prepared for the theatre of this country, or written by Americans. Of these many were of course got up for temporary purposes, and when these purposes were answered were no longer remembered; but you will be surprised to learn that of this number, commencing in 1775, there are no less than thirty-three tragedies, the best of which are those which have been recently brought out, Metamora, Ouralasqui, a prize tragedy by a lady of Kentucky, and a combination of tragedies, by Paine, called Brutus, which has been on the stage for several years. The rest are scarcely remembered. The writer who seems to have devoted the largest portion of his time to dramatic literature in this country and who may be called the father of the American drama, is Mr. Dunlap, who has figured for many years in the various characters of dramatist, manager, and painter. His dramatic pieces amount to about 50, and he has already outlived their fame. Some of his translations from the German are still exhibited; but his original compositions are now never performed, and are almost forgotten. Mr. J. N. Barker of Philadelphia, stands next in point of fecundity, having given birth to ten dramatic bantlings in the course of his life, some of which are very creditable to their parent, but none are, I believe, stock plays. The prejudice against native writers was at one time so strong that the managers deemed it prudent to announce Mr. Barker's Marmion, Sir Walter's poem dramatized, as the production of Thomas Morton the author of Columbus. Mr. Dunlap was also I understand obliged to resort to the same expedient in relation to two or three of his plays; but as moon as it was known, their popularity, which had at first been considerable, immediately ceased, and they were laid upon the shelf. Such are some of the difficulties with which the American writer has to struggle; but these I am happy to learn are now giving way, and a more liberal spirit is beginning to prevail. It is to be hoped that the dramatic muse of America will soon be enabled to triumph over all the impediments which she has had to encounter, and repose in the same bower and be crowned with the same chaplet as her more fortunate sister of romance. Among the American plays which accident brought under my notice, was a comedy in five acts, entitled the "Child of Feeling," published in 1809, and written by a citizen of Washington. It seems to have been a juvenile production, written without much knowledge of the world, but with a due regard to the unities. The dialogue wants sprightliness and the plot interest, and I merely mention it now because its contains among its dramatis personæ a character which is to me entirely original, and which if he really existed, the author must I think have caricatured in his copy. He is called Etymology, and does not belie his name, for he is constantly occupied in tracing every word that is spoken by himself or others to its root, and makes as may easily be supposed, some comic and ludicrous blunders. Till very recently, the author of even a successful play received scarcely any compensation for his labor, and the fame he acquired was but of short duration. Now however, it is otherwise, and both reputation and emolument attend the successful dramatist. The comedies, by American writers that I have seen, are not remarkable for their wit or humor, and therefore do not long retain their hold upon the stage. Dramatic exhibitions are not however held by the Americans in very high estimation, and this may be one of the causes of the low state of dramatic literature here. But the principal causes would appear to be the want of leisure, the devotion of the people to higher and more lucrative avocations, and the facility with which dramatic productions of established merit and popularity can be obtained from England. These causes operate in like manner I conceive, to prevent the attainment of that high poetical excellence which has yet to be reached by the worshippers of the muse in this country. The following remarks on this subject by an American writer are so pertinent, that I will transcribe them for your information. "We regret to say," says he, speaking of American poetry, "that much less has been done than might reasonably have been expected, even during our short political existence. We have indeed as yet scarcely done anything at which an American can look with conscious pride, as a trophy of native poetic genius. The ponderous and vapid Epic of Barlow, and the still more leaden and senseless heroics of Emmons, are far from giving reputation to the poetry of our country; and the fugitive and occasional pieces of Percival, Bryant, Halleck, &c. are not exactly such as we should select as a proof that we have done much in poetry. We have been in existence as a nation for upwards of half a century, and yet we have produced nothing that is certain to reach posterity, or that can be classed higher than the minor productions of Moore, Campbell, or Byron, of the present day. There is an apparent want of originality, and too great an appearance of imitation in the poetical efforts of our native bards to carry them far down the stream of time, though it must be conceded that they have discovered in these efforts no ordinary portion of genius. There would seem to be something either in the nature of our political institutions, or in the general character of our pursuits, which is inimical to the developement of high poetical power. We are not a very imaginative people; we prefer the reality to the ideal; we pursue the substance rather than the shadow. Our ambition is early fired by political distinction, or our exertions are directed to the attainment of competency or wealth. The public mind has been led into a train of thinking somewhat adverse to the indulgence of poetical enthusiasm, and not calculated to render it susceptible of deep and intense delight from the contemplation of poetical beauty. It has been led to consider that the highest efforts of genius are those which are displayed at the bar or in the senate, and to regard the power of forensic and parliamentary eloquence as the loftiest exhibition of intellectual excellence. To that which the mind is early taught to respect and admire its greatest exertions will be directed, and hence the number of those who resort to the profession of law, the career of legislation, or the pursuits of commerce," &c.

It is unquestionably true, that no great original poetical work of distinguished merit has yet made its appearance in the United States, but it cannot at the same time be denied, that the individuals this writer has named, with Bryant, Sigourney, Willis, and several others, possess a fine poetical vein, the mens divinior of Horace. Some of their effusions contain passages of great beauty and splendor, and may be fairly classed with those of the first poets of our country. Most of them however, have merely what Mad. De Genlis calls the "art of making verses;" and either from the want of encouragement, the stimulus of praise, or continued enthusiasm, wing their flight briefly into the regions of poetic fancy, and seldom afterwards attempt any more lofty or daring excursions. But I must pause. I will endeavor in my next to bring my remarks on the science and literature of the United States to a close.

FINE PASSAGE IN HOOKER.

Hooker in his Ecclesiastical Polity says, "The time will come when three words, uttered with charity and meekness, shall receive a far more blessed reward, than three thousand volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit."

TO ——.

PARAPHRASE

TO MY SISTERS.

LINES.

GRAYSON GRIFFITH.

There is in a pleasant part of the Old Dominion, a thrifty village named Goodcheer. The inhabitants, from the first settlement of the place, were kind, and bland, and social. Indeed many of them went further. They jested, they fiddled, they danced, they sang songs, they played at cards, they drank wine, they frolicked. Yet was there among them a strong and steady current of public opinion against acts of very low and gross meanness or depravity. They were not liars, or thieves, or swindlers, or rakes.

In this village lived Gregory Griffith, the tanner, whose industry and probity earned for him a respectability and an independence rivalled by none except the old patriarch of the village, more generally known by the name of the Major. Gregory had married the eldest daughter of old farmer Ryefield, a woman well suited to make him happy. Her disposition was easy, and her habits industrious and economical. They were a bonny couple.

Fourteen months after their marriage, their first born son, a lovely child, smiled in the face of his parents. Him they called Grayson. Nor was he the only pledge of their love. They alternately rejoiced over a daughter and a son, until their quiver was full, having four sons and three lovely daughters. The death of their second child, who bore her mother's name, had in the fourth year of their marriage, wrung the bleeding hearts of these parents, and chastened their feelings to sober thinking. Between their first born and their third child lay an interval of nearly five years—a period which Mr. and Mrs. Griffith always spoke of with deep emotion.

Grayson, in his childhood, had but feeble health—a circumstance which secured to him very indulgent treatment. This indulgence rose to excess after the death of the lovely Martha, his little sister. So soon after the death of the daughter, as the gay villagers could with propriety, they planned a general meeting at Mr. Griffith's. They came, and after some time spent in sober enjoyment, a game of whist was proposed. The proposal sensibly affected Mrs. Griffith. She seemed to feel that it was too soon after her babe's death. The tears started in her eyes, and she sought a place to weep. She went to her toilet and bathed her face, and returned with an air of constrained cheerfulness. Meanwhile Mr. Griffith had taken his seat with a second company who were playing loo. Before Martha's death, Grayson had been regularly carried to the nursery, as the sun threw his lowest and latest beams on the summit of a hill in sight from the portico. But after the death of his sister, he was encouraged to spend the evening with his parents; and when overcome by sleep, his cradle and his pillow were the bosom and the lap of parental fondness. And when company was present, he was often awake until a late hour. On this evening every one had something to say to Master Grayson. All the ladies kissed him, and more than one promised him a daughter for a little sweetheart. When whist and loo became the amusement, Grayson was much interested, especially when he saw his father dealing out. The very beaminess of his eye seemed to throw a charm around the figures on every card. At first he said nothing. At last he went to his mother and said: "Mamma, won't you teach me to do like papa? O, I wish sister Martha was not dead, that she might see the pretties papa has got. Mamma, what are the papers with the hearts on?" The mention of Martha's name overcame Mrs. Griffith. She led Grayson to her bed-room, and wept and kissed him until, overcome by sleep, he forgot his joys and his sorrows until the next day. The nurse having lodged the sweet boy in the long crib at the side of his parent's bed, Mrs. Griffith returned to her company. Either her appearance, or a sense of propriety in her guests, operated a speedy dissolution of the party. The company being gone, Mr. Griffith said he wished he had not consented to play that evening—that Martha had been dead but a year, and that he really thought that as his child had been taken to heaven when not two years old, it was time for him to begin to think of preparing to meet her. Mrs. Griffith wept at the mention of Martha's name, repeated what Grayson had said, observed that she had felt badly, but that they must not be melancholy. She also said it was very kind in the neighbors to endeavor to cheer them up. It was after midnight, in the month of June, before these parents slept at all. At the very dawn of day Grayson awoke his parents by kissing them often, and calling their names aloud. So soon as he could get his father's attention, he said: "O father, what were those pretty things you had in your hand last night? Father, were they yours? May I have some? Can't I do as you did with them? Father, what was you doing? Please, sir, give me some to carry to school to-day." Mr. Griffith was not displeased that Grayson did not wait for an answer to his interrogatories. To his request for some to carry to school, he replied that Mr. Birch, the teacher, was a religious man, and would not let the boys carry such things to school. Grayson said: "And an't you religious too, papa?" and kissed him. Mr. Griffith looked at his wife. They both smiled confusedly.

After breakfast, some of the neighbors called and inquired for the welfare of the family. Some of the ladies kissed Grayson, as did his mother, and he went to school. At play-time he told the children what he had seen, and one of the older boys explained the matter to the rest of the company. He said the old people loved fun, and also played for money—and yet they would not let their boys play. "Never mind," continued he, "I can make fun, if you will all beg some pins and bring here to-morrow. Now, fellows, don't forget—bring a good many." The next morning every mother and sister were faithfully plied for pins, and every boy's sleeve was brightened with them. Before the teacher had arrived, the elder boy, before named, had taught all his juniors two ways of playing pins—one on a hat, and the other called "heads or points." In a few days one boy had secured all the pins, and kept them safely in a little case made of a section of reed. The spirit of gambling, however, did not expire with the loss of the pins. Indeed the loss of the many was the gain of one, and that one was the object of profound admiration.

In a day or two, one of the boys came to school with an ear of white and another of red corn, and a piece of chalk in his pocket, and whispered to all his play fellows that now they would have fine fun. Every urchin was restless for play-time. Grayson Griffith was sure the master's watch must have stopped or must be too slow, and said so. At length the hour of recreation came, and as soon as all were fairly out of the teacher's hearing, the aforesaid boy prepared to teach his fellows the game of fox and geese. With his chalk he chequered a board, and arranged his white and red grains in proper order—calling the white grains of corn geese, and the red foxes. Soon he initiated every boy, and Grayson Griffith among the number, in the mysteries of the game.

Ere long it was proposed that every boy should ask for a cent at home, and bring it to school. It was done. Grayson Griffith asked for one cent, and his father gave him two, and his mother one. They said he was old enough to have pocket money. He was now nearly eight years old. In the playtime, all the boys agreed to throw heads or tails, until they had won or lost the money that could be had. At the end of the sport, Grayson had seven cents—but on his way home, he dropped one in the grass, and by throwing heads or tails with another boy, he lost three more—so that at night he had no more and no less than in the morning.

That evening he asked if his father would go to the race next day. His father replied he did not know. "Well," said Grayson, "I bet you three cents and my barlow knife against ninepence, that Colonel Riley's Firefly will beat General Hobson's young Medley." "You will bet?" said Mr. Griffith. "Why, yes," said Grayson, "did not you bet at loo, father?" Grayson and his father, as by mutual consent, waived the conversation.

Next day Grayson told at school what had occurred. Mr. Griffith did not go to the races; but in the evening some of the gentlemen came to see him, and induced him to bet as high as twenty dollars on a game at loo. Grayson seemed hardly to notice the occurrence, yet he was in reality closely observing, and caught several of the expressions of the gentlemen visiters. The next day, at a game of fox and geese, he cried "Damme soul." And as he went to school he kept saying, "Clubs are trumps—high, low, jack and the game." He thought it sounded pretty.

In the meantime Mr. Griffith's family increased. He had now three sons and a daughter; and Grayson would often promise to show his little brother how to play fox and geese when he should grow a little larger. Mrs. Griffith had also played at cards when any very special company was present, or she was much urged.

Mr. Griffith about this time gave a hundred dollars towards building a church in the village, and subscribed twenty dollars a year towards the minister's salary; and many of the people had become very serious, and even religious. The good minister, like his master Jesus Christ, was very fond of children. All the children knew him in six weeks after he went to live in Goodcheer, and they all loved him. They would speak to him all the way across the street. One day Mr. Goodnews (for that was the minister's name) called at Mr. Griffith's, and asked Grayson if he knew how many commandments there were. His answer was, "I bet you I do." "But," said Mr. Goodnews, "I never bet, my dear little boy. Did not you know it was wrong to bet?" "No," said Grayson, "it is'nt—Father and mother bet." Mrs. Griffith's face colored, and she stammered out, "My son, you ought not to tell stories, even in fun. You will make dear Mr. Goodnews think very badly of your parents." "Any how, mother, it is true," said the boy.

When Grayson was eleven years old, he was allowed to go to the races. Here his fondness for sport and gaming was much increased. He also saw many things that he did not understand, and some that made him shudder. His parents had given him at different times money, which he had saved, and adding to which, what he received that morning, the sum total amounted to one dollar and a quarter. The race that day was chiefly between two noted animals, Major Clark's Rabbit, and Colonel Nelson's Yellow Gray. Betting ran high. At first Grayson bet twenty-five cents in favor of Rabbit; then he bet fifty cents against twenty-five on the Yellow Gray; then he bet his remaining fifty cents against another fifty cents in favor of Yellow Gray. In the meantime he bought some beer and some cakes, and paid away twenty-five cents of his money. When he first remembered that he might lose, he thought he would not be able to meet all his engagements; but on reflection he discovered, that let who would win, he could not lose all. The race was run. Rabbit was beaten, and Grayson got his seventy-five cents, and paid what he had lost, and had now left one dollar and a half. At first he thought he would go home, and started—but a boy stepped forward and said, he could show him some tricks—that he had a rattle-come-snap, &c. Grayson went with him into the bushes, and there Grayson lost one dollar at some sort of game, became vexed, and went home. At night he would have determined never to bet any more, had it not been that some gentlemen came to his father's, and talked earnestly about their gains. Then the thought entered his mind that it was entirely owing to good luck that some succeeded, and that he would have better luck another day.

A few days after the races, Mr. Griffith was called to see his mother die. She had been a very worldly-minded, proud woman—but her last sickness had humbled her. With her last breath she spoke of herself as a great sinner, and of her salvation as doubtful, and most solemnly warned all her children not to follow her example. The minister at Goodcheer went over to preach the funeral sermon, and returning in company with Mr. Griffith, he thought he perceived some seriousness in his manner, and introduced a very friendly and solemn conversation on the importance of preparing for death. From that time Mr. Griffith began to change, and in twelve months he and his wife both joined Mr. Goodnews's church. They also presented their five children to the Lord. This was a great change, and was much spoken of by the villagers. It is thought the father and mother were both truly converted. The day the children were baptized, Grayson did not behave well in church, yet he dared not to do anything very wrong. The next day, when one of the boys laughed at him for being baptized, he at first thought he would say nothing, and had he done so, all would have been well. But the laugh tormented him. So in going home from school he made fun of it, and said the old people had got mighty religious. When he got home he felt dreadfully at seeing Mr. Goodnews at his father's; but he soon left the house, and took the old cat in his arms, and called the dogs, and went to chase cats in the old field.

His parents with difficulty prevailed on him to attend Sabbath school. He said five days and a half in a week were enough to go to school. He also disliked to come to prayers. He was frequently out until a late hour at night, and once was found with some very bad boys in an old house on a Sabbath night, doing what he called "projecting." His parents had all along opposed the cold water men, and had allowed Grayson to have some sweetened dram in the morning out of their cups. And even after Mr. and Mrs. Griffith joined the church, it did not seem easy to conquer in a day all their prejudices against the temperance society. These things led Master Grayson to drink julaps, and punch, and even grog. But he did not drink much. He had also learned to use profane language to an extent that was very distressing to some pious people who had heard him; but his parents supposed he never swore.

When Grayson was sixteen years old, he read Hoyle on Games; and though he understood very little of what he read, he conceived that gaming must be a very profound science. Especially was this impression deepened by hearing a member of congress say, that Hoyle was as profound as Sir Isaac Newton. He read Hoyle again, and even on the Sabbath. His parents began to suffer much uneasiness about him; they sometimes wept over his case; they took great pains to make religion appear amiable—but he was eager in his pursuit of vanity.

When Grayson was eighteen or nineteen years old, he became acquainted with Archibald Anderson, a most unworthy young man, of low breeding and much cunning. Archie persuaded Grayson to go a pleasuring the next Sunday—told him he had found a bee-tree, and that they would get some girls and go and take the bee-tree next Sunday. They went, and although Grayson tried to think it fine fun, it was a very gloomy day. A thousand times did he wish himself in church. At night he came in late, and went immediately to bed. Next day his father inquired where he had been. But Grayson let him understand that young people must not be watched too closely. In a day or two Mrs. Griffith became alarmed at finding in Grayson's apparel evident preparations to elope; but gentle and kind treatment soon seemed to regain his confidence.

Mr. Griffith had, in the course of business, previously borrowed a thousand dollars from one of his neighbors, who had since removed to the city of Allvice—and wishing to raise his bond, he gave Grayson $1060, being the principal and interest for one year, and money to buy himself a suit of clothes, and started him to town. Grayson had never been to the city before, and his hopes were very high. On the evening of the third day's ride, he arrived in the city of Allvice, and put up in Blockley Row, at Spendthrift Hotel, next door to the sign of the Conscience-seared-with-a-hot-iron. After supper he went to the bar-room, and asked a young man "how far it was to any place where he could see some fun." "What, the theatre," said the young man. "Any place where I can see a little fun," said he. The young man said, "follow me." Ere long they were at the door of the theatre, where Grayson saw in large letters over a door—"The way to the pit." He knew not what it meant, but said to the young man, "Don't let us go that way." "No," said his companion, "we will go to the gallery. You know they are in the gallery." Grayson knew not who was meant by the emphatic they; but following his guide, was soon in a crowd of black and white women, and young and old men. Taking the first lesson in the species of crime there taught, he stepped down a little lower, and asked to what place a certain door led. He was told, "to the boxes." Entering that door, he found many a vacant seat, and listened—but when others laughed, he saw nothing to laugh at, until the clown came on the stage. At him he laughed—he roared. Yet he felt as if he had lost something, but could not tell what it was. "In the midst of laughter the heart is sad," were words he often repeated, as he sat in a box alone. The play being ended, he endeavored to find his way to the hotel, but was greatly discomposed at remembering that his money had been left in his saddle-bags, and they not locked, and that he had not seen them since he came to town. At length he reached his lodgings, and found all safe. He went to bed, but could not sleep. Most of the night was spent in reflection, or rather in wild and vain imaginations. A little before day a well dressed gentleman was shown into the room where our young hero lay, there being two beds in the room. The new inmate took a seat, and sighed; he paced the floor; he took out his port-folio, and wrote a few words; he dropped his pen and said, "What a fool." At length Griffith (for he is now too old to be called by his given name,) ventured to inquire whether he could in any way assist his room-mate to a greater composure. "O sir," said the man, and sighed. At length the stranger said: "Eight days ago I left home with $3,600 to go to the north to buy goods. I came here day before yesterday, and to-night they have got the last cent from me at the faro bank. And now, O what a fool!—I had rather take five hundred lashes than do what I must,—write to my partner or my wife to send me money to carry me home." Griffith expressed regret, but of course could offer no consolation. He resolved, however, to pay the $1,060 as soon as he could find the man to whom it was due. This he accordingly did before nine o'clock next morning. The rest of the day he walked the streets. Every little while $3,600 kept ringing in his ears. At night, not having bought his suit of clothes, he went to the bar, and there found the same young gentleman who the night before had accompanied him to the theatre. Griffith took a seat by a window, and the well dressed young man came to him and said: "Young gentleman, I see you are fond of real genteel pleasure; let us go down into hell, and win those fellows' money." Perhaps more mingled emotions never agitated a bosom. In the first place he had been called a young gentleman—an honor which, though he had deserved it before, had seldom been given him. Then the idea of "real and genteel pleasure." But the very sound of "going down to hell!" He would not go in "the way to the pit" the night previous—and now could he go to hell? At length he concluded that it was a mere nickname, and that the place was really no worse than if it were called heaven, and he replied, "I don't care if I do." They both left the room and went to the stable. "Stop a minute," said Griffith, "let me see if Decatur has a good bed and a plenty to eat." In half a minute he satisfied himself that his horse fared well, and he followed his young acquaintance into one of the stalls, through which they passed by a blind door into a long, narrow and dark entry. "Follow me," said the young man. Presently they entered a large room. Griffith was struck with the abundance of good things to eat and drink, which too were all free for visiters. At a table on one side, sat an old man with a playful countenance. He rose and said: "Last night a man won $3,600 at this table." Three thousand six hundred dollars thought Griffith—and "how much had he to begin with?" said he to the old gentleman. "Only a ten dollar note," was the reply. In another part of the room, Griffith saw a young man sitting behind a table, and leaning against the wall, with his hat drawn down over his forehead, and wearing a heavy set of features. Before him on the table lay three heaps of money—one of silver—another of gold—a third of paper. Griffith eat some very fine blanc mange on the table, and drank a little brandy, after which he concluded he would risk ten dollars on a card. He did so, and put a ten dollar bill into his pocket. His next risk was five dollars, which he lost. With various success he spent an hour, at the end of which he had tripled his money. He then retired to his room, and slept until a late hour in the morning. Then he went to a merchant tailor, and ordered his new suit, and spent the day in musing—visiting factories—attending auctions, and laying plans for the night. "If I had held on I might have broke them," said he; "I should have gotten $3,600!" Night came, and with it a self-confident feeling peculiar to the young gambler. He returned alone through the stall into "hell," and there lost all he had but five dollars. The next night he won $150. The next night, which was to be his last in the city, he went, and for a time succeeded. Once he had $700 in pocket, but before day-light he had lost every cent he had, and making known his situation, two men who had won his money, gave him each five dollars, and advised him to leave town at day-light. That was a wretched night to Griffith. His couch was a "bed of unrest." His very dreams were startling. At daylight he paid his bill, and had remaining three dollars and a quarter. He mounted Decatur, and with a heavy heart journeyed towards the village of Goodcheer. When he found himself in sight of home, he felt in his pocket and found he had seventy-five cents. He also felt for the cancelled bond, but could not find it. Riding into the woods, he examined his saddle-bags, and found the bond in a waistcoat pocket. Seizing it with great joy, he shed a tear, and mounted again. All the way home he had thought much of the manner in which he should account for not having the new clothes. At length seeing no way of escape, from confusion at least, in case his father should inquire respecting the matter, he cherished the hope that his father would say nothing. So he paced along, and got home just in time for dinner. There was an air of affected cheerfulness in young Griffith's gait and manner, that was unusual. He did the best he could—took care early to deliver the cancelled bond—said he was not much pleased with the city, and told something of what he had seen. Next day his father asked if he had gotten the new suit. He replied that he had concluded not to get it then, and reddened very much. Mr. Griffith told his wife that he had fears about Grayson. They both wept, and agreed to pray for him more than usual.

In the course of time, young Griffith being twenty-one years old, left his father's, with $700 and Decatur, to seek his fortune in the West. He soon obtained employment, and in the course of two years was able to commence business as partner in a new firm. But, unfortunately, he was not satisfied in the village where he was, but broke up and went to the town of Badblood, where he opened a store. He was not long here until a quarrel commenced betwixt him and one of his neighbors. The occasion of the quarrel was a disagreement as to the beauty of a piece of music. One declared the other to have a bad taste, and this was regarded as insulting. Of course a challenge was given, and accepted. The day of combat arrived. At the first fire no blood was spilt. This was owing to the great agitation of both the combatants. At the second fire Griffith wounded his antagonist slightly, but himself received no wound. At the third fire Griffith's right arm was broken, and his antagonist was wounded in the thigh. Here the seconds and friends interfered, and declared they had fought enough. Had it not been for public opinion, they would have thought that it was enough to be shot at once a piece. But they were both content to quit, and even to drink each other's health, before they left the ground. In the course of eight or nine weeks, they were both in their usual health, and attending to their accustomed duties.

The effect on Mr. Griffith's family on learning that Grayson was expected to fight, was very distressing. The day the challenge was given, Griffith wrote to his father thus:

My very dear Father:—On the morning of the day on which this shall reach you in due course of mail, I shall have settled an affair of honor. I do not love to fight, because I neither like the idea of killing or being killed. If I go on the ground, I shall certainly take life or lose it. I can't help it. I should be posted as a coward, if I did not. Mr. B. will write you as soon as it is decided. Love to mother and the children. God bless you. I can't bear an insult. Your's ever,

An entire week was this family in suspense, when at last, by request of the father, dear Mr. Goodnews, the minister, was at the office, and got the letter and opened it, and read the account as before given. He immediately went to Mr. Griffith's, and found both the parents in bed with a high fever, and their countenances covered with wan despair. As he entered the door he tried to look cheerfully. "Grayson is dead," said the almost frantic mother. "No, he is'nt," said the minister. "Then he is mortally wounded," said she. "No, he is not," said he. "Then he is a murderer; he has killed a man! O, my first-born Grayson!" "My dear Mrs. Griffith," said the good minister, "the Lord is better than all your fears. Grayson and his antagonist are both wounded indeed, but neither mortally." "O bless the Lord, bless the Lord," said Mrs. Griffith, and swooned away. On using proper means she was restored, and became calm and quiet; but it was an hour before Mr. Goodnews could read the whole letter to her. Mr. Griffith suffered greatly, but was much occupied with the care of his wife. He really feared that things would have terminated fatally. In a few days the parents rallied, and wrote Grayson a most affectionate and solemn letter, which he never answered.

The next news of importance which these parents received respecting their son was, that he was married to an amiable, though a thoughtless and giddy girl. In a year they heard that he was the father of a sweet boy. In eighteen months more they heard that he had a sweet daughter. Not long after, they heard that he made frequent and unaccountable excursions from home, and presently they heard, that on a steam boat that ran between the town of Badblood and the Bay of Dissipation, he had by gambling, lost all his money. What they had heard was true. Losing his money, he hastened home—made some arrangements for his family—disposed of as much property as was left—received five hundred dollars in hand—left two hundred with his wife—and with the other three hundred set out professedly to visit his parents at the village of Goodcheer. But the demon of gambling had possessed him—and Griffith in a few weeks found himself with but one hundred dollars, remaining at Spendthrift Hotel, in Blockley Row, in the city of Allvice in the Old Dominion. Here Griffith resolved to retrieve his fortunes. He sought the faro bank, and in an hour was pennyless. Poor Griffith was not far from perfect ruin. He spent the night in dreadful tossings, and in the very room where he had lodged years before. He fancied that he saw "$3,600" in flaming figures before him. In the morning he walked the streets. He watched to see whether he could recognize any old friend among the hundreds he met. He read the names on the sign-boards; he searched the morning papers; yet no bright prospect opened before him. In the afternoon he wandered into Purity Lane, and had hardly entered that street, when he saw on the knocker at the door, "Amos Kindheart." He asked a servant who was washing down the white marble steps, whether the "Reverend" Mr. Kindheart lived there, and was answered in the affirmative. Asking to be introduced into his presence, he was soon shown into the study. "Is this the Rev. Mr. Kindheart?" said he. "It is," replied the good man, "please to be seated." "Are you not acquainted with Rev. Mr. Goodnews?" "Yes sir." "Do you not also know Gregory Griffith?" "Yes sir; I stayed at his house more than a week some years ago; and if I am not deceived, this is his son Grayson, who used to exercise my horse night and morning when I was there." Mr. Kindheart expressed much pleasure at seeing him, and learned that he had a wife and two children in the town of Badblood, in the State of Misery; he also learned that he had been a merchant. Mr. Kindheart treated him very affectionately, gave him a handsome little present, invited him to dinner next day, and excused himself for that evening, as he had in a remote part of the city an engagement that could not be broken. Early next morning a little ragged servant handed Mr. Kindheart a sealed note from Griffith, stating that he had been imprudent, and requesting him to send by the bearer a sum sufficient to meet the expenses of a passage to the pleasant village of Goodcheer, from which place the amount should be returned at an early date. Mr. Kindheart replied in a note that he had not the money then, but would get it before the next evening, when the first stage would leave, and renewed the invitation to dinner that day. Dinner came, but no Griffith was there. Several hours before it was time for the stage to start, Mr. Kindheart called with the money at Griffith's lodgings, but he was not to be seen. In a short time he called again, and then again. Still he could not be seen. The truth was, Griffith's conscience would not let him face a man from whom he knew he desired money only that he might have the means of gambling. He had no serious purpose of visiting Goodcheer.

For many days Griffith loitered about the city in perfect wretchedness, and without one cent of money. At length he went to the proper city police officer, and told him that there were several gambling establishments in town, that many persons visited them, and that he could give important testimony in the case. Then going to Hardface and Takeall, two gamblers, he told them that unless they would give him $600, so that he might fairly and speedily escape, he would be retained as a witness against them at the next sessions. The gamblers agreed to give him $500, hastened his departure in a private conveyance, but started after him a man, who overtaking him in the next post town, horsewhipped him very severely. Griffith bore this rough treatment like a dog. He squealed, he cried, he howled, he danced—but he did not resist.

From this time Griffith wandered about, until, in the course of a few months, he found himself again with his family. At first he seemed pleased to kiss his babes and embrace his wife; but the next day went to a faro bank in Badblood, and lost all he had—even his wife's wardrobe and toilet. At this time he resolved on destroying his own life. He went to three different shops, and procured laudanum in a quantity sufficient to take life. He went home, and as he ascended the first flight of stairs, he emptied the contents of each vial into his stomach. O woman, what an angel of mercy thou art! His wife met him at the door, with unwonted demonstrations of love. His little boy prattled most sweetly; his little girl breathed in her crib as gently as a May zephyr. His wife told him of several pleasant and smart things which the children had said and done that day. He began to weep—then to tremble—then to dislodge the contents of his stomach. "My dear Nancy," said Griffith, "I shall be dead in a few hours, but never mind." His wife perceiving that laudanum was in his stomach, instantly prepared a potent emetic, and mixing it with a large tumbler of hot water, offered it to her husband, and he consented to drink it, supposing it could not be improper. In a few minutes, through the influence of nausea, from the effects of brandy, and from the dose just given, the stomach was emptied. Poor Griffith suffered much, but gradually recovered. None save his wife knew of the attempted violence on his own life.

At length a few benevolent people proposed to him to leave Badblood, and go into the interior. He consented, and they gave him the necessary money, as he and his family entered the stage. Griffith was much affected by their kindness, especially that of one old Baptist gentleman, who said very tenderly, "God bless you all." They travelled day and night, until they were two hundred miles from the place of their recent miseries, when a violent fever and painful dysentery in their little boy compelled them to stop. The house where they stopped, though not promising much in outward appearance, was yet neat and clean. Mr. Felix, the landlord, and his wife, were intelligent, industrious and pious. They were strict temperance people, and no liquor could be had for drink within fifteen miles. Griffith of course became very cool. The first day he was very wretched; he had no employment—he had no heart to assist in nursing the sick boy. Towards evening he took a gun and walked into the field, and shot a partridge. At first he seemed pleased that he might thus promote the comfort of his little son, but then he remembered that animal food of any kind would injure him. The next day he was more miserable than ever, until about noon he saw fishing rods, and on inquiry found that there was a fish-pond not very distant. He went and angled for hours, but the hot sun had driven every fish under the banks and tussocks. He sat four long hours, and had not even a nibble. He returned with a heavy heart; yet it was pleasant to more than his wife, to observe a growing earnestness and frequency of inquiry into the health of his child. The next day, being Friday, a meeting commenced at a church not three hundred yards distant from the house of their kind landlord, and by a little persuasion, Griffith was prevailed on to attend. The first sermon was very animated, and was on that text: Isaiah lii. 3: "Thus saith the Lord; ye have sold yourselves for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money." Griffith sat on the back seat, and paid more attention than one would have supposed from his appearance. The second sermon was preached by an old gentleman, on the text, 1 Timothy, i. 15: "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Returning home, Griffith thought the preachers both affectionate and able; but he really thought some things must be personal. Indeed, the young man who had preached first, had a very dark and piercing eye, which when animated in preaching, made almost every one think he was looking all the while at him alone. When Griffith came home, he sat by his sick child, and told his wife what he had seen and heard. That night he was restless and wakeful. In the morning he took a long walk before breakfast, and at the usual hour repaired to the church. A sermon was then preached on the Cities of Refuge, and the preacher earnestly exhorted his hearers to flee for refuge to the hope set before them in the gospel. The exercises of Saturday afternoon, were prayer and singing, accompanied by short and solemn exhortations. In all these services Griffith manifested deep interest, though he said nothing, except that he detailed to his wife what he had seen and heard. He also said, that as their boy was now much improved in health, and as Mr. Felix's oldest daughter would stay at home next day, his wife must accompany him to church. Sabbath morning came, and although there seemed to be many difficulties, yet they were all surmounted, and Mrs. Griffith and her husband, for the first time in several years, went in company to the house of God. The text was, Isaiah liii. 5: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." During the delivery of this sermon, Griffith was seen to weep. His wife, however, had two reasons for not feeling easy. Her apparel was really poor; but she was soon relieved, by seeing that all the people were plainly attired. She also suffered much uneasiness about her son. But good Mrs. Felix had directed her eldest son to return home in an hour after the service should begin, and bring word whether all was right. Her son came with a message, which she soon, in a whisper, communicated to Mrs. Griffith. The message was, that the boy had fallen asleep—that his room had been made dark—that he seemed to sleep very sweetly, and would perhaps not wake for an hour or two. Mrs. Griffith got the message just in time to be entirely composed during the administration of the Lord's Supper, which service immediately succeeded the first sermon. It was a solemn scene. There were few dry eyes in the house. At the close of the communion service, the company of believers rose and sang that favorite spiritual song—

Griffith and his wife both thought "how happy are they." They both hastened home, as did Mrs. Felix also. Finding their boy much better, and their kind hostess herself determining to remain at home in the afternoon, both Mr. and Mrs. Griffith returned to the church. When they came near the church they heard singing, and just as they entered the door, the congregation sung, and repeated the closing lines of a hymn as follows:

Griffith sighed, and said to himself—"O that I could give myself away, and the gift be accepted." They had just taken their seats, when the preacher announced his text in Revelation xxii. 17: "And the spirit and the bride say, come: and let him that heareth say, come: and let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The sermon did not exceed forty minutes in length, yet it was a faithful, tender and solemn entreaty to all sinners, the least and the most vile, to come to Christ and live. After service, one of the ministers went home with Mr. Felix, and having observed Griffith's behavior at church, he said many good things in his presence and for his benefit. Griffith and his wife spent most of that night in solemn reflection and silent prayer. On Monday morning a neighbor called to complete some arrangements with Mr. Felix, in reference to supplying the place of their teacher, who had recently died. In an unexpected train of conversation, they were led to speak of Griffith as perhaps a suitable man. In a few days it was mutually agreed that Griffith should teach the school for the rest of that session, which was but three months. His family being provided for, he commenced his school. Yet for days and weeks, both he and his wife suffered much pain and darkness of mind. At length they both, about the same time, hoped that they had found him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. After trial of some weeks, they were admitted to the communion. The day after this event, Griffith wrote an affecting letter to his venerable parents. This letter was evidently blessed, not only to the comfort of their hearts, but also many of the pious people in Goodcheer were much affected by it.

Griffith immediately established the worship of God in his family, and rejoiced in God with all his heart. Nor was his wife a whit behind in holy delight at the change. Griffith's conversion led him to inquire into the lawfulness of gambling. He had three questions to decide. The first was, whether he should pay a debt of $60 incurred in gambling? He soon resolved to pay it, as it was the manner of contracting, and not the payment of the debt, that was the sin. The next question was, what should he do respecting the $9,000, which he found by estimate he had lost at different times? To this he could only say, that most of it was won by strangers, and by men who had long since died in wretchedness and poverty. He could not get it. By a careful estimate of what he had won from men whose names and residence he knew, over and above what they had won from him, and including the $500 extorted from the gamblers, by threatening to volunteer as witness against them, he found that he owed in all, rather more than $1,500. Resolving to pay the whole sum, if spared and prospered, he engaged to teach school another session of ten months; and although he could not save much of his earnings, he resolved to save what he could.

How astonished was he, when a few days after he formed this purpose, as he was going to school in the morning, a gentleman hailed him as Mr. Griffith, and said: "Sir, I won from you several years ago nearly $700; there is the money, with some interest. I am a christian. I cannot keep it; there it is." With these few words, the traveller proceeded. Griffith was so amazed, that he even forgot to ask his name, or residence, or the course of his journey. Of the $700, Griffith sent $200 to the widow of a poor silly drunken man, from whom he had, not long before his complete downfall, won that amount. He sent $200 more to a young clerk, whom he had well nigh ruined as to morals and character, and from whom he had won $180 two years before. He sent $300 to the father of a little blind girl, from whose deceased brother he had won that amount, saving the interest, and requesting that it might be employed to send the blind child to the Asylum for the blind. By the kindness of Providence, other sums were restored to him, amounting in all to a few hundreds. His economy and industry, and good capacity as a teacher, also secured to him a growing income from his school—so that in a few years he had paid every debt, and restored all money obtained by gambling. He has since bought a small tract of land, and built a very neat cabin, with two apartments, upon it. He calls it the Retreat. He is now forty-three years old—still keeps a school—has a good income from his own industry—enjoys tolerable health, and has around him many of the comforts of life. His wife and children still live, and help to make him happy. His penitence and humility are deep; yet is thankfulness the reigning exercise of his heart. The goodness and grace of God, through Jesus Christ, are themes on which he never tires.

Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels got hot by driving fast.—Coleridge.

LINES

¹ A familiar suggests that an "oaken towel" might produce the desired effect. No doubt; and hence the expression "cudgel thy brains."

THE DIAMOND CHAIN.

WHERE SHALL THE STUDENT REST?

THE AGE OF REPTILES.

¹ See the Edinburg Philosophical Journal and the 21st No. of Silliman's Journal, for some account of the Geological Age of Reptiles, by Gideon Mantell, Esq. F.R.S. &c. &c.

ANSWER

EPIGRAM.

VISIT TO THE VIRGINIA SPRINGS,

Whilst at the Salt Sulphur, I found it necessary, for a time, to exchange that for a water of a somewhat different character; and as the Blue Sulphur had begun to attract considerable attention, I determined to resort thither. Accordingly, I took the stage for Lewisburg, twenty-five miles distant from the Salt Sulphur, and within thirteen miles of the Blue. We travelled over the White Sulphur road as far as the splendid Greenbrier bridge on this turnpike, where we were landed at a hotel, to await the arrival of the Fincastle stage, to carry us on to Lewisburg. It was already dark before the stage came up, and although but three miles of our road lay before us, yet the whole distance was ascending, so that we could not travel out of the slowest walk. We however reached Lewisburg in time to discuss the merits of an excellent supper, and get into comfortable lodgings by a very reasonable bed time.

I was detained at this place for want of a conveyance to the Blue Sulphur, there being as yet no regular stage. The time, however, passed off pleasantly. Lewisburg contains about seven or eight hundred inhabitants; its situation is elevated—the scenery around quite picturesque; and, if the improvements progress as they have done for the past few years, it will soon become a very pretty village. This place is much frequented, during the spring season, by visiters at the White Sulphur—the distance being only nine miles, over a smooth, and for the most part, beautiful road.

After two days, I succeeded in obtaining a horse, and on the following morning set off, in company with a gentleman of the neighborhood, on the remaining thirteen miles to the Blue Sulphur. The way usually travelled by carriages is circuitous; consequently, we struck across through the country, on the most direct route to the Springs. Our road was exceedingly rough and hilly, without anything peculiarly interesting. Indeed, we were so completely imbosomed among the hills and forests, that nothing could be seen except the long ridge of the Muddy Creek Mountain, which lay before us. Before reaching the base, the road had dwindled into a blind bridle path, winding amongst the spurs of the mountain; and on ascending, it became so precipitious, and so covered with loose and rolling stones, as to render it almost impassable. We at length succeeded in reaching the summit—not however without having been obliged to dismount occasionally, and allow our horses to clamber after us over the worst parts of the way. We then travelled for two miles along the top of the mountain, over a level and beautiful road; after which we descended by a rough and rocky path, similar to that on the opposite side. A few miles more, over a fertile and cultivated country, brought us into the vicinity of the Blue Sulphur, or in the language of the country, to the Muddy Creek settlement.

As the accommodations at the Spring were already occupied, we rode up to an old fashioned log house, with a long piazza in front, surrounded by lombardy poplars and apple trees, and screened from the road by an intervening hill, and obtained accommodations with its kind and pleasant occupants. No part of my time among the mountains, was attended with more peculiar or deeper interest than that passed in the Muddy Creek settlement. Every thing about this region is calculated to bring one back to the early days of our country. The habits and customs are all after the unpretending fashion of the pioneers; and human character is here seen in its native simplicity. Refinement, with its luxuries and follies, has not yet penetrated this secluded region, to corrupt the plain and simple customs of its generous, open-hearted and upright yeomanry. Here too, as a friend remarked, we realize, to some extent, the amazing and almost startling rapidity with which our nation has sprung into existence. But a few years ago this was the undisputed home of the Indian. This identical house was once the last house on the frontier of civilized America; and one of the family now alive, was among the little band who first ventured across the Alleghany mountains, and carried the sounds of civilized life into these desolate wilds. Hers was the last family on the western frontier. Not a civilized being stood on the wide waste of wilderness which stretched far away to the shores of the Pacific. But, with unexampled rapidity, civilization has transformed the whole face of the country; and this old lady, who thought she "had gotten to the end of the world when she got to Greenbrier," has, within her own recollection, seen a nation springing up west of her, already putting on the vigor and energy of mature years, and outstripping the nations of the eastern world.

This interesting old lady, is indeed a complete "chronicler of the olden time." Her attire is in perfect keeping with her character. She still preserves the simple style of the by-gone century, uncorrupted by the supposed improvement of a later generation. The close cut cap, scarcely concealing the silvered locks of age—the muslin handkerchief, drawn neatly over the shoulders, covering a part of the plain tight sleeves, and confined under the girdle of a long-waisted tea-colored gown, were admirably suited to the bending, yet dignified and venerable figure which they adorned. Then to sit during the pensive hours of evening in the old piazza, overlooking the garden a few feet before us, which was the site of one of the earliest forts, the fields and the peaks, the scenes of frightful Indian massacres, and listen to her narratives of the perils and trials of the pioneers of Greenbrier, is a treat which a few years will probably put it out of the power of any to enjoy. Her graphic delineations of the horrors of a frontier life, sometimes excited our imagination to such a pitch, as to render it difficult to compose the body to repose at the accustomed time of retirement, or to restrain the mind from frightful dreams during the sleeping hours. The whole Muddy Creek settlement abounds with Indian tales. Every mountain, knob and hollow, is notorious as having been the scene of some bloody deed or memorable exploit of the red men of the forest, as they made the last struggle, before giving way to the invaders, and leaving forever their native wilds.

But our present destination is the Blue Sulphur. The distance thither from our house is rather more than a mile. The intermediate region is level low ground, bounded on each side, at some distance, by a ridge of mountain. These two ridges gradually converge, until they pass the Spring about one hundred yards, where a third ridge brings a sweep immediately across the line of their direction, and closes that end of the valley. The space about the Spring is a perfect level, amply extensive, and admirably adapted for improvements on a large and handsome scale.

The Blue Sulphur, like many of the valuable mineral springs of this state, has heretofore been known only as a place of neighborhood resort. A few diminutive log cabins had been erected by the farmers of the adjacent country, who, after the labors of harvest, were accustomed to bring their families, with a wagon load of goods and chattels, and take up their residence here during one or two of the summer months. The virtues of the Muddy Creek Springs have long been known and esteemed by these visiters. A year or two since the property was purchased by a company, who are now providing extensive and most inviting accommodations. I do not know that I can be charged with disloyalty to my native state, in rejoicing that these Springs have partly fallen into the hands of northern men. Our own citizens have generally shown such an astonishing want of energy in carrying on these valuable watering places, that we believe it to be better that one of them has come into the possession of those, who are willing, at any expense, to do it and the public justice; and who, in proportion to the time they have owned the property, have shown a spirit of improvement greatly surpassing that of the proprietors of most of the other Springs. One of the first changes under the auspices of the new administration, was the substitution of the title of Blue Sulphur for the more ignoble appellation of Muddy Creek Springs.

The company, immediately after the purchase of the property, commenced their improvements, and at the period of our visit, were prosecuting them with a spirit worthy of admiration. These improvements consist of a long and imposing brick hotel, three stories in height, at the upper extremity of the valley, and facing the entrance to the Springs. This is flanked on each side by a row of brick cottages, which at their outward extremities, unite with similar ranges, running parallel with the bases of the mountains and each other, until they nearly reach the Spring, forming together three sides of a hollow square. The intermediate lawn, can by a little cultivation and exercise of taste, be rendered very beautiful. A temple, surpassing in appearance that of any of the other watering places, is to be erected over the Spring, and the reservoir, &c. to be fitted up in corresponding style. The Spring is large, discharging a quantity of water nearly equal to the White Sulphur. The sediment from which the establishment has derived its modern name, is of a blue or rich dark purple color.

At the time I visited the Blue Sulphur, some of the new buildings were partly finished, and a tavern keeper from the neighborhood had opened a boarding house on the ground; and although the accommodations were quite rough, there were at one time as many as seventy-five visiters. Most of these were citizens of Charlestown, who had fled from the cholera, which was then raging on the Kanawha.

The mountains in this vicinity abound with game, and accordingly, hunting is the favorite amusement of the visiters. Almost every morning a company started, with hounds and horns, on a "deer drive," and they seldom returned without bringing with them one of these noble animals. On one morning, a fine buck was driven down, and shot within a few feet of the Spring. Others of the visiters make excursions through the mountains, to enjoy the attractions which have been lavished with such profusion on this section of country. Perhaps one of the most pleasant of these, is a ride of some ten or fifteen miles to a spring which has lately come to light, and which for a sulphur spring is rather sui generis. It was discovered by an old farmer, who was engaged in boring for salt water. When he had sunk his shaft to the depth of some fifty feet, the water bursted up, and rushed from the opening of the well. But instead of salt, it was sulphur water; and it has continued to run with unabated freedom to the present time. Little is as yet known of its peculiar properties. It deposits a white sediment. The proprietor, I understand, will neither make improvements himself, nor allow others to do so. Perhaps, however, we can dispense with his spring. There are enough already improved, among these mountains, to meet the case of almost any invalid. Among these, the Blue Sulphur is by no means the least worthy of notice; and we must not therefore leave it, before we have said something of its medicinal qualities.

Those who know most of the Blue Sulphur, say that it combines the valuable properties of the White and Red Sulphur. This is probably true to some extent. The Blue Sulphur operates upon the liver with great energy, and at the same time acts as a tonic. These are, respectively, qualities of the White and Red Sulphur. The White Sulphur, although it scarcely ever fails to rectify derangements of the liver, depletes, and generally to some extent, produces debility. The latter effect, we believe, is never produced by the Blue Sulphur, owing probably to its tonic properties. We do not know, however, how far either has claim to preference. As to the similarity between this Spring and the Red Sulphur, we suppose it ascertained that wherever there is a derangement of the sanguiferous system, except where the lungs are affected, the action of the Blue Sulphur is equally, if not more salutary, than that of the Red. This water is, however, very exciting; perhaps even more so than the White Sulphur, and should consequently, like that Spring, be avoided by pulmonary invalids. There is also an approximation in the action of the Blue and Salt Sulphur waters. Both of these Springs are efficacious in affections of the stomach. Where the invalid retains a considerable degree of vigor, or where the system is irritable, the Salt Sulphur would be decidedly preferable, as that water occasions very little of the unpleasant, and in such cases, perhaps injurious excitement caused by the Blue Sulphur water. Where dyspepsy has advanced so far as to occasion extreme debility, probably the Blue Sulphur should be resorted to, at least for a while, as that water would sustain and strengthen the system, at the same time that it removed the disease. These remarks are the result of the observation of the practical effects of these waters, and of the experience of others, without pretension to professional skill. We believe, however, that they will be found strictly correct.

The similarity between these Springs to which we have alluded, need not be injurious to either, whilst the probabilities in favor of the restoration of an individual who comes to these mountains for health, is increased by this circumstance. It is the opinion of those who have been most at these watering places, that after two weeks constant use of any water, it begins to lose its power on the system.¹ If the use is discontinued for a few days, or if you resort to another Spring for a short time, a return to the original Spring is attended with the same effects as when first resorted to. A variety of waters, therefore, even when their qualities are to some extent similar, is a decided advantage. The invalid who has gotten his system charged at one Spring, can resort to another of a sufficiently different character to secure the object of a change, and yet resembling the original water sufficiently to suit the necessities of his case. A turnpike will soon be completed from Lewisburg to the Blue Sulphur, and again connecting with the Kanawha turnpike, west of the Springs, which will render this place easily accessible.

¹ Perhaps the Red Sulphur is an exception.

After a sojourn of a week, I again turned my face towards the Salt Sulphur. I had as a companion an intelligent gentleman, extensively acquainted with the country; and in accordance with his proposition, we determined to reach that place by a route somewhat different, and offering more natural attractions than that by which I had come over. In the course of the evening, we passed through some of the finest farms in Western Virginia. I do not believe that the prairies of the "far West" can exhibit more luxuriant fields of corn than some of those in this section of Greenbrier. We passed the Muddy Creek Mountain at a gap, and our way, although little more than an indistinct bridle path, was more pleasant than that by which I had before crossed. The view from the highest point on this gap, almost defies description.

From the section of country which we had left behind us, rose Keeny's Nob, a huge peak upon which the Indians used to light signal fires, and which derived its name from some romantic circumstance—rearing its summit far above the adjacent mountains, and spreading out its swelling sides and the projections of its base over the neighboring country; from this, and continuing round to the right, before us, were alternate ridges and vallies, covered with dense forest, as yet apparently untouched by the woodman's axe, and only broken by the Greenbrier river, whose high and bleak naked cliffs could be seen at the distance of some miles. Beyond, was Peter's Mountain, coming down from the west, and running off to the east, in a straight unbroken line. Immediately before us, were the variegated fields of a few rich grazing farms. Farther on, the mountain upon which Lewisburg is situated, excluding the White Sulphur from the view; and in the distance, the "back bone" of the Alleghany, which you cross five miles beyond the White Sulphur on the turnpike, whose line could be occasionally discerned as it wound among the spurs of the mountain. To the left lay some cultivated country, terminated by ridges upon ridges of mountains. The sun was in the last hour of his daily course, and with his evening rays illumined the hills, giving the varied hues, from the brightest to the deepest green, to the waste of "silent wilderness" which stretched far away to that quarter of the horizon. We were soon, however, obliged to relinquish this scene, combining so much of the grand, beautiful and sublime, and hasten down the mountain, in order to get as far as possible through the worst of the hills and hollows before night should overtake us.

I took the stage at Lewisburg next morning, and by noon arrived at the Salt Sulphur, which was now thronged, and exhibiting all the life, and bustle, and fashion, which crowds of the gay and wealthy bring with them. Every garret and domicil about the establishment, capable of being slept in, had been called into requisition the night before. We heard, before reaching the Springs, that the proprietors, on the previous evening, had sent on to stop visiters bound thither, in Union, until quarters should be vacated at the Salt Sulphur. All the crowding, however, could not interfere with the perfect system of this establishment. Every thing went on with as much regularity, and in the same comfortable style, as when there were but fifty visiters. After spending a few days very pleasantly at this place, I secured a seat in Shank's fine line of coaches for the Sweet Springs, about twenty-two miles southeast of the Salt Sulphur.

The road was generally good, and the country more beautiful and picturesque, but less romantic, than any we had seen in this section of country. Our driver was quite a rapid traveller, and by the aid of fine teams, he carried us over the ground at very good speed, and before dinner, had landed us in front of the old white tavern at the Sweet Springs.

The crowd here surpassed, if possible, that at the Salt Sulphur. On our arrival, it seemed exceedingly doubtful whether we could remain on the premises at all. Every room on the ground was full. Many of the visiters lodged on the bar-room tables, and on the benches of an old court-house, at present the Spring's church. By dint of perseverance, and the aid of friends, I at length succeeded in getting a cot squeezed between two of five or six others, in an old log school-house on the outskirts of the premises. The accommodations at the Sweet Springs are generally very good; the fare excellent. The crowd was at this time so great, as to render it impossible that every one should be comfortable. The usual dining-room was nothing like large enough for the company. Two long additional tables were set in the bar-room.

The "Sweet Springs" are considered by some equal in beauty to the White Sulphur. Nature has perhaps done as much here as at any watering place among the mountains; but I do not think the improvements or the arrangement of the buildings at all equal to those at the White Sulphur. The extensive undulating lawn, and grove of noble oaks—the cottages on the open green, or peering from amidst the trees, do indeed present a beautiful scene. But the latter are scattered in rows or groups over the ground without any regular order, and the lawn has never undergone any of the operations of art. The Spring rises under the piazza of a low and long house, at the foot of the hillock on which the tavern stands, and in a hollow formed by this, with the small hill on which the cabins are principally built. The reservoir is a circle of about five feet diameter, surrounded by a railing two or three feet high. Great quantities of carbonic acid gas are constantly emitted, which comes bubbling up through the water, giving it somewhat the appearance of boiling.

The "Sweet Springs" derived its name from the taste of the water. I thought it, however, a complete misnomer. The taste of the water is very singular, and at first rather unpleasant—but containing, according to our perception, very little sweetness. The house adjoining the Spring contains the baths; the finest cold medicinal baths, probably, in the country. The water rises from a gravelled bottom, over perhaps the whole extent of the baths, which are very spacious.

The Sweet Spring water is a powerful tonic; and after the system has been thoroughly cleansed at the other Springs, this is an admirable place for recruiting flesh and strength before leaving the mountains. The same precaution given to pulmonary invalids, is even more necessary here than at the White and Blue Sulphur. The water is highly exciting, and consequently very injurious to such persons.

As soon as possible after arriving here, I obtained a seat in the stage for Fincastle—and on a fine morning in the latter part of August, rendered more balmy and delightful by the mountain breezes, we set off, in company with two other coaches, for the Valley. The press of passengers in that direction was so great, that notwithstanding the two extras, our coach carried, including all sizes, fourteen besides the driver. We commenced ascending the Sweet Spring Mountain, soon after setting out, and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Valley of the Springs and the surrounding country, which is afforded from its summit. Two other mountains still lay in our way. The second of the three if called the "Seven Mile Mountain," that being the distance passed in crossing it. On reaching its base, we chartered two additional horses, and drove "coach and six" to the top, where we left them, and with the other coaches went rattling and thundering down the mountain. We soon after passed the last of this formidable trio, and after a pleasant drive through the flourishing county of Botetourt, reached Fincastle. At this place we intersected the "Valley Line," which carried us over the great Natural Bridge and down the Valley of Virginia.

The writer did not visit the Warm and Hot Springs, and consequently does not notice them.

Remark the use which Shakspeare always makes of his bold villains, as vehicles for expressing opinions and conjectures of a nature too hazardous for a wise man to put forth directly as his own, or from any sustained character.—Coleridge's Table Talk.

MY FIRST NIGHT IN A WATCHHOUSE.

The title of this narrative intimates to the reader by a natural inference, that its writer has spent more nights than one in that abode of the unruly—a watchhouse. I will be candid, and admit the fact, that twice during a pretty long and not unadventurous life, it has been my lot to enjoy the security afforded by that refuge of the vagrant. Twice only—I confess to no more. The first of these dilemmas I am about to speak of now—the second may form a subject of future narration.

There are few of my readers who have not heard of the city of Montreal, in the Province of Lower Canada, and fewer still who know much of its peculiarities, social, political or architectural, on which it is my design hereafter, supposing that I can keep on good terms with Mr. White, to enlighten them—but not at present. Well, it was my happiness, at an early period of my life, to reside in the good city of Montreal. What carried me there, is my own affair, and I shall merely say that I was neither a trader who cheated the poor Indians out of their pelteries, a smuggler of teas and silks across the frontier, a tin pedlar, nor a bank-note counterfeiter, all of which classes often find it convenient to take up a temporary residence in Canada. I was a wild ungovernable lad, with no parent or guardian to direct me, left entirely to my own impulses, and unfortunately enjoying the pecuniary means of assisting those impulses to bring me into all manner of scrapes, from which it required much ingenuity to extricate myself.

The long winters in Canada may convey to a southern reader an idea of dreariness and discomfort, locked up as the people are in enduring frosts—buried for months in continual snows—with one unvaried monotony of dazzling white pervading the face of nature—the streams fast sealed with "thick ribbed ice"—and a thermometer at from twenty to thirty degrees below zero for weeks together. In short, a southern fancy paints Old Winter, ruling with despotic sway, unrestrained by the checks and balances which limit his authority in our more moderate climate—usurping a portion of the nominal domains of autumn and spring—and inflicting through his prime minister, Jack Frost, the most rigorous exactions of a government of force, on the unresisting people—penetrating into their dwellings at all hours, interfering even in the mode of their dress, attending all their movements in town or in country, and invariably assailing the lonely traveller on the extended prairie or in the dreary forest. Such is undoubtedly the picture which a southern imagination draws of a Canadian winter. But social life can modify the worst extremes of nature's inclemency, and find in the very evils of our condition sources of delight and enjoyment. So far from suffering during the winters I spent in Canada, I recall those joyous periods, when I was engaged in the constant pursuit of gaiety and pleasure, and when care had no control over my spirits as the brightest spots on the far off waste of memory.

How different were those winters from the fickle, capricious season through which we have just passed. Poets and tourists have celebrated the beauty of Italian skies. I have never seen them—but I can fancy nothing brighter than the heavens in Canada, on a clear frosty night, when every breath of vapor is absorbed and rarefied by the intensity of the cold. Never have I realized in other countries the complete distinctness with which each star comes forth in the azure vault—the palpable suspension of each body of light in the field of air. In other skies the stars and planets seem delineated on a ground of blue. In a Canadian winter night you realize that each orb is in suspension, moving and twinkling through the surrounding ether. This is difficult to describe, and some who have not seen and felt the glories of the northern heavens as I have—aye, felt them in a double sense, gazing upon them until my soul was wrapt into sublime ecstasy, and my upturned nose frost bitten into the bargain—may think that I am talking nonsense.

But the social delights of a Canadian winter are more to my purpose, in disabusing the fancy of those who shiver when they think of these hyperborean regions. Such tremors may be justified when we fancy a winter tramp across the steppe of Russia, or a visit to a Koureen of Zapojoreskies. But Canada—dear, delightful Canada! The gaieties of thy long winters—the dancing—the driving—the dining—the flirtation—the lovemaking, with which thy frosty months abound, might keep warm the heart of a dweller underneath the tropics.

It was during the winter of 18—, that after a long cessation of theatrical representations in Montreal, a new theatre, which had recently been built, was opened under the management of Mr. T——, with a company principally picked up from the northern theatres of the United States. Since the performances of Prigmore's old company, previous to the declaration of war, in which, I believe, George Barrett, since a favorite in high comedy, was the Roscius, playing Romeo, Hamlet, &c. and in which Fennel played as a star, there had been no regular theatrical establishment in Montreal—although the officers of the garrison gave occasional dramatic exhibitions, and the young citizens sometimes enacted a play or two during a season. A regular theatre was a new thing, and excited much attention. The manager was perhaps the finest specimen of self-conceit that the world ever saw.¹ He was a short stumpy kind of man, with a face of most fixed character, which delineated all the passions with the self-same expression. His smooth pert visage, lit up by two bead-like black eyes, seemed so entirely contented with its natural expression, as to render it unnecessary to assume any other. His voice, shrill and guttural, emulated his face in its uniformity. He had a game leg, about three inches shorter than its brother, which gave him a halt of so decided a character as not to be disguised. Yet he believed himself to be a most distinguished actor, and fully competent to the representation of Richard III, (for which his lameness was often quoted by him as a natural advantage) and even the more youthful and well favored heroes of Shakspeare. The vanity of this man might have been harmless, had he not been the manager. But in that capacity it interfered most wofully with the well ordering of affairs. The company was by no means strong. A Mr. Baker played the high tragedy badly enough. Mc—— and Richards shared the next grade, the former doing the seconds in tragedy and the ruffians in melo-drama. Of this man I must say something, as he is connected with my narrative. For some misconduct, the nature of which I know not, he had been driven from the stage in England several years before, and enlisted as a foot soldier in the 40th regiment. As such, he served in Upper Canada during the war with this country; and when he obtained his discharge in Montreal, the theatre being about to open, he was engaged to personate the Cassios, the Horatios, the Baron Steinforts, &c. If his temper was ever amiable, it had gained nothing by his military service. He was morose and troublesome; but as the company was composed, useful and rather a favorite.

¹ He was not only an actor, but a dramatist. He was, or claimed to be, the author of "Rudolph, or the Robbers of Calabria," a very tedious piece of Brigandism; and "One o'clock, or the Wood Dæmon," almost a literal version of Monk Lewis's "Wood Dæmon." He used to accuse Lewis of having stolen his melo-drama, and told a long and rather incomprehensible story of the manner in which the theft was perpetrated. He also wrote a play called "Valdemar, or the German Exiles," which was performed in the new theatre, at the period alluded to in my story, and possessed, I think, soma little merit. Besides being actor and play wright, he was a scene-painter, and kept a tavern in the good city of Montreal.

Of the females I shall notice but one, as she is to be the heroine of my story for the present, and as, but for her, (like Mr. Canning's needy knife-grinder) I should have no story to tell. What shall I call her? Not by her real name surely—for she has since held a high rank among the heroines of the stage. I will call her Fenella; leaving the curious to guess her real name, while I assure them that she is an actual entity, whose performances I doubt not, many of my readers have frequently admired. She was then an interesting woman of about twenty. There was something a little mysterious in the circumstances under which she made her first appearance in Montreal, which rendered her the more attractive. She had with her an infant child; and yet she was advertised as a Miss! Shocking inferences were of course drawn among the censorious; and sensations of a different description encouraged the loose and licentious young men about town, to suppose that this living indication of Fenella's frailty was a guarantee of the success of their unhallowed addresses. Those who knew her, told a curious story of her adventures in ——, the turn of which had driven her to a temporary exile in Canada. The substance of the story was this: She was the daughter of a poor widow, who earned her living by her needle. Fenella was, when very young, remarkable for the beauty and vivacity of her countenance, the grace of her figure, and an intelligence beyond her advantages. An ambition to rise from her humble condition, tempted her to resort to the stage. She appeared and was applauded, for she exhibited true signs of talent of no common order. She was engaged, but filled a subordinate station for two or three years. The management of the —— theatre changed during this period, and the old gentleman who had assumed the duties of manager, was not long in perceiving the merits of Fenella as an actress, while her personal attractions awakened within him the remnant of amatory fire which time had not extinguished, and subjected her to the unseasonable ecstatics of a sexagenary lover. This part of her good fortune had few charms for a sprightly girl of seventeen. But the ancient manager had a son, who, while he equalled the old gentleman in the perception of female attractions, had far greater charms in the eyes of the females themselves, being a handsome well built fellow, and having had some practice in the delicate task of making himself agreeable to the beau sexe. It so turned out, that, while the old gentleman was making an inquiry into the state of his feelings towards the pretty young actress, which ultimately induced him to persecute her on all occasions with his protestations of passion, the young man had actually made successful advances to the discriminating fair one, and had so far succeeded as to create a reciprocal sentiment in her breast. They had betrothed themselves, (or as we tamely say, were engaged,) but the old gentleman's passion for Fenella, was a serious obstacle to their happiness. His temper was irascible, and he required submission from all beneath him to his most unreasonable fancies. His son was naturally desirous of avoiding his anger, and having discovered the state of his father's feelings, he was desirous of keeping secret the true state of affairs. In this dilemma, the young couple decided upon a private marriage. Even after that event, her husband thought it advisable to avoid a rupture with his father; but when, in the natural course of things, Fenella was about to become a mother, the secret could no longer be kept, unless by her absenting herself from ——. She therefore left her husband, and entered upon a temporary engagement in Montreal.

Such was the story then told, and believed by all the charitable portion of Fenella's admirers. I believed it then, and have had some reason since to think it true, as, after remaining two years in Canada, she returned to —— and joined her reputed husband, lived with him for several years, until his death, and bears his name to this day.

Like other young men, I was fond of the theatre, and visited it frequently. I was a great admirer of Fenella as an actress, but had no acquaintance with her during her first season. Several of my young friends were enlisted among her adorers, a numerous train, embracing all ages, from the beardless boy to the bachelor of threescore. As far as my observation extended, the managed this retinue of lovers with great adroitness. To the young, she talked sentimentally, and excited their fancy—with the old, she was prudent, and went just far enough to retain their homage without committing herself. I had often rallied Harry Selden, an inflammable young friend of mine, upon his hopeless passion, for he was desperately enamored of the bewitching actress. He confessed his lamentable infatuation, but insisted that I was only secured from a similar fate by the distance which I kept from the sphere of her attractions. This opinion I combated, and one evening, when he proposed to test my stoicism by taking me to Fenella's lodgings after the play was ended, I was too confident that I could not be caught by the same snare in which he was entangled, to refuse the challenge, and readily agreed to his proposition. We went to the theatre, and Selden having presented me to her in the green room, we accepted Fenella's invitation to see her home, and partake of a petit souper at her apartments.

It is proper perhaps, that I should here describe the lady, according to the regular rules of tale writing, although as I have no great talent in that line of description, I shall undoubtedly make a bungling business of it. Fenella was rather above the middle height, uncommonly well made, and her form fully developed that graceful outline which denotes the full grown woman, in contradistinction to the more angular symmetry of girlhood. Her face was oval, so much so that there was something Chinese in its contour, although in nothing else: her hair was a light chestnut, and so exuberant in its growth as to contribute materially to her beauty. Her eyes were blue, bright and sparkling when her fancy was excited, or languid and voluptuous when at rest. But the mouth of this attractive creature was the prime beauty of her countenance. It is difficult to imbody in words the varied charms that played about her ripe and tempting lips. Certainly I had better not attempt it. I will therefore leave my gentleman readers to finish the sketch, by imagining the prettiest and most attractive woman of their acquaintance—not absolutely a beauty—and I think they will have a correct idea of Fenella.

I was too young to have known much of women, but I was sternly resolved not to be overcome. Fancy me then téte à téte with Fenella and my friend Selden, supping on cold tongue, and sipping white sherry. At first I felt uneasy, but was still sure I should brave all consequences. Gradually as I looked upon the animated countenance of my hostess, the ice of my reserve was thawed, for my apparent coldness seemed to have inspired her with the determination to warm me into sentiments more complimentary at least to her powers of fascination. I afterwards learned that Selden had betrayed to her my ridicule of the devotion of her admirers. It was therefore merely natural that she should have resolved to rank me in the number. Nor had she misjudged her power, or the softness of my nature. I melted beneath her smile, like wax before the flame—and ere we rose from the table I had become aware of a new and indefinable sensation towards her: all I can say of it is, that it was not love, although it had a close affinity to that passion.

The freedom and ease of her conversation was new to me. She spoke of her numerous lovers without embarrassment, and in some instances with no little sarcasm; but she constantly qualified her raillery by confessing that they were good souls, and alluded to the presents which they made her in the most amiable terms.

Time rolled on, and a month or two found me a constant visiter at the lodgings of Fenella. I then flattered myself that I was a favorite. I gallanted her frequently to the theatre, and waiting in the green room until she had changed her dress, attended her home, supped with her, and often prolonged my stay to a late hour. I never talked love to her—for I did not know how—and she had so much experience in that matter that I feared I should make myself ridiculous. Her power over me was complete, yet I cannot charge her with having exerted it in a single instance unfairly. Her whole design against me seemed to have been confined to the excitement of a degree of admiration commensurate with her personal attractions. At that point she appeared satisfied; but as I grew in intimacy with her she shewed herself sincerely my friend, frequently checking my fool hardy impetuosity, and giving me good advice, which might have come with a better grace from the less lovely lips of my aunt Deborah. I soon accommodated my sentiments and conduct to those of Fenella, and while I became her most devoted friend, I dropped entirely the character and feelings of a lover. A tacit understanding soon became established between us; and I was admitted to liberties in my new character, which I could have enjoyed in no other. These familiarities were misunderstood by my friends; but in spite of their firm belief, there was nothing amatory in our intercourse.

About this time Fenella's benefit at the theatre was announced, an event of some importance to her, as the second season of the theatre had been particularly unproductive, and the limping manager had failed almost entirely to pay the salaries of his performers. I think Douglas was the play selected by her, in which she was to personate Lady Randolph; and in order to the effective cast of the piece, it was essential that Mc—— should perform Glenalvon. He had frequently treated Fenella with rudeness, and evidently disliked her; he objected to the part assigned him, and absented himself from the rehearsals of the tragedy. But as he was notoriously a devotee of the bottle, and frequently remiss in his duty, little was thought of his absence. The benefit night arrived; the time came for the curtain to rise; but no Glenalvon had appeared behind the scenes; and it was soon made known that Mc—— had not studied the part, and would not appear that night. The house was crowded; and to Fenella's great mortification, it was necessary that some other performer should read the part. This was done, and the play came off lamely enough.

Fenella was not destitute of spirit, and she resented this affront in the proper manner. Mc——'s benefit took place a few weeks after, and she resolutely refused to play for him. As she was the only actress in the company possessing any claim to talent, it was impossible to cast a piece without her; and the consequence of her name being absent from the bills for Mc——'s benefit was, that no one attended, or so few as to render it a most irksome task to go through the performances. The rage of the disappointed beneficiary was boundless: he vowed that he would be revenged upon Fenella for the injury she had done him, although in just resentment of an affront for which he deserved no better treatment.

Mc—— was a good draughtsman, and frequently sketched figures with great accuracy. He resorted to his pencil as the instrument of his revenge, and caricatured Fenella with so much skill, that while no one could mistake the original of the sketch, the incongruities of the details were such as to render it highly ludicrous.

The chief quality of a caricature seems to be disproportion—an unfitness of parts to each other. Simple exaggeration does not suffice to produce the effect desired, for if all the details of the picture be equally exaggerated, it may present a disagreeable likeness, but it does not produce that deep sense of the ridiculous which arises from an incongruous classification of the details. This rule is perhaps better tested than any other, by the reductio ad absurdum, and it is well illustrated by those extravagant French prints, in which heads of enormous comparative dimensions are placed upon bodies and limbs ridiculously diminutive, the effect of the disproportion being heightened by the accessaries of dress, &c. This is perhaps the most extravagant kind of caricature, but it requires far less skill than those sketches in which the more minute incongruities of features, form and costume, are resorted to. These sometimes exhibit much graphic ability, and it is a curious fact, that in pictures of this kind, where every feature is distorted, the strongest likenesses are sometimes preserved.² It is truth presented through the medium of the ludicrous. Like the burlesque in writing, which exhibits an argument even more forcibly, because it presents the whole matter in a ridiculous light. But I am forgetting my story.

² Some striking examples of this have been produced by the French caricaturists, who, though far inferior to their English brethren in broad humor, excel them in the subtilty of their conceptions. I remember a series of prints representing Charles X and his ministers, in the forms of various beasts. The king was personated by the Giraffe, then exhibiting at the Jardin des plantes in Paris—the ministers by other animals, whose instinctive qualities were intended to represent the several characteristics of those dignitaries. For instance, as well as I remember, the Fox played Prince Polignac, the Wolf, Count Peyronnet, &c. to indicate the cunning and rapacity of those ministers. The accuracy of the likenesses in those prints was remarkable. I believe Louis Phillippe and his ministers have more recently been shewn up in a similar manner.

I had not seen Fenella for several days, when passing along St. Paul street one morning, I met an acquaintance, who accosted me with,

"Bless me, Pertinax, where have you been so long? I was last evening at Fenella's, and she actually hinted a suspicion of your defection from her cause."

"Why to tell you the truth Nichols, I have absented myself with malice prepense."

"She is of that opinion, and takes it unkindly of you, that while she is suffering so much vexation, you of all others, who neither flatter nor make love to her, should prove recreant."

"Vexation! what do you mean?"

"Come, come, you will not pretend that you know of nothing which should annoy her, when the cause of her annoyance is the talk of the whole town."

"Nothing whatsoever—I know of nothing that could give her uneasiness, unless that stupid Lord William Lenox³ has been besieging her again. I saw him driving a tandem carriole this morning. Perhaps he drove to her lodgings and worried her with his vapid talk."

³ This sprig of nobility, is the third son of the Duke of Richmond, who was then Governor of the Canadas. At that early period, Lord William had made himself notorious by the seduction of a married woman, whom he kept as a mistress for some time. The people of Montreal were much scandalized at that affair. He has since become well known to the world by his marriage with the celebrated singer, Miss Paton,—by squandering her earnings in the most profligate manner, and by his divorce from her. The lady is better known in this country as Mrs. Wood, and under that name her singing has been universally admired here. Lord William's last enterprise, it appears, is a theatrical one—as the English newspapers state that he is now the manager of a provincial theatre.

"Nonsense! She has not seen Lord William for a week."

"Well, what is the matter then?"

"And you really have not heard?"

"I tell you I have heard nothing of the kind."

"And you have not seen Selden, nor Seymour, nor Marryatt, nor Cleaveland."

"Neither of them for two days. I have been a perfect hermit, shut up among my books, during that period."

"And you have heard nothing of a caricature?"

"Out upon you—caricature! No!"

"You surprise me. Well, I must be the first to inform you, that Mc—— has put his threat of revenge into execution, by making our friend the subject of a caricature, confoundedly well done, and striking in its resemblance, but so ludicrous that it is impossible to resist laughing at it. Here it is"—and he produced the sketch.

Fenella's costume was peculiar, although no way extravagant. During the winter, her street dress was a tight fitting blue cloth pelisse, trimmed in front with gold buttons, with two or three on the waist behind; a black fur tippet round the throat, and a black fur bonnet and feather. The picture did not shew her face, but represented her moving from the spectator. The dress was a perfect copy, and the figure could not be mistaken; but the skill of the artist had given to it the most masculine character, and the posture was so ludicrously vulgar, as to produce great effect. Indignant as I was at this dastardly method of casting ridicule on an amiable woman, I could not but be sensible of the talent which had rendered a mere figure so extremely ridiculous.

"And where did you get this, Nichols?" said I.

"Oh, they are to be had for money. This is the first that was exhibited. Passing by the barber's shop just below the City Hotel, yesterday morning, I saw it in the window, and purchased it for the modest sum of two crowns. Before night another was exhibited, and bought by Cleaveland for three crowns; and this morning another copy appeared, which Selden bought for five. The rascal rises in his price at every repetition, and is in a fair way to make up for the loss at his benefit. There is another in the window now, and if we pass that way you may see it. Our object in buying them was to get them out of the way, for you cannot conceive how much annoyed Fenella is, at this vulgar representation of her figure. But as long as we buy, Mc—— will produce copies."

"Come along. I will have some talk with this barber"—and we made our way to the shop, at the window of which, as Nichols had stated, the picture hung, while a crowd of idlers were stopping to laugh at this ridiculous effigy of a popular actress.

We entered the shop and demanded the price of the caricature.

"Ten dollars," was the reply.

"Have you the audacity," said I, "to demand such a sum for a daub like this?"

"I have."

"And how do you rate its value so high?"

"By the demand for it. I have not an article in my shop that commands so ready a sale. Those who buy know the intrinsic value of the picture better than I do. I only judge of it by the price which it will bring"—said the fellow with a roguish smile, which tempted me to knock him down.

"Well," said I, "you have killed the golden goose this time, or I am mistaken. You shall not sell another of them if I can prevent it."

"Oh I have no fear of that. The lady herself will buy them, rather than allow them to hang long in my window."

"You are an impertinent varlet, and I trust will be chastised as you deserve."

I should have said more; but Nichols hurried me away, lest my hot temper should get me into some awkward scrape—and we walked to Fenella's lodgings.

What happened there and afterwards, must be deferred to another chapter, when the reader shall be introduced into the watchhouse, and his curiosity gratified in regard to my sojourn there.

DISSERTATION

In no respect do we find the characteristical differences between the sexes more marked than in regard to religion; and certainly, we see woman in no attitude more engaging, more interesting or useful, than in the quiet, but graceful performance of her duties to her Maker.

The belief in the providence of some superior being or beings, has ever been a source of obligation to mankind in all ages and countries. Man may be pronounced to be emphatically a religious being. Every where, whether savage or civilized, do we behold him looking to the god or gods of nature, and dreading their punishment, not only in the world to come, but even in this. It is this spirit of devotion which "calls forth the hymn of the infant bard, as well as the anthem of the poet of classic times. It prompts the nursery tale of superstition, as well as the demonstration of the school of philosophy." "If you search the world," says Plutarch, "you may find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city without a deity, without a temple, or without some form of worship;" and Maximus Tyrius, another of the ancients, declares that, "in such a contest, and tumult, and disagreement of opinions on other subjects, you may see this one law and speech acknowledged by common accord, that there is one God, the king and father of all, and many gods, the children of God, and ruling together with him. This the Greek says, and this the Barbarian says; and the inhabitant of the continent, and the islander, and the wise and the unwise."

This universal consent in the operation of a superintending and controlling providence, is one of the most luminous and important facts of our nature. It rests the evidence of natural religion not upon the unsteady basis of argument or reason—not upon the sophisms of philosophers, or the edicts of monarchs, or popes, or councils; but upon the immoveable basis of nature—upon instinct itself. "There is no era," says Mr. Allison, "so barbarous, in which man has existed, in which traces are not to be seen of the alliance which he has felt between earth and heaven; and amid the wildest as amid the most genial scenes of an uncultivated world, the rude altar of the barbarian every where marks the emotions that swelled in his bosom, when he erected it to the awful or beneficent deities whose imaginary presence it records."

But although there be that within us which leads directly to the contemplation of divinity, and of the retribution which awaits us in another world, yet we are not to conclude that this belief is not strengthened and confirmed by reason and experience. On the contrary, the argument in favor of a God and rewards and punishments hereafter, gains strength, with the increasing age, experience and knowledge of the world. Religion, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism, degenerates into gross superstition and revolting idolatry. By means of reason and knowledge, we are the better enabled to overleap the vast chasm interposed between us and the divine nature; to contemplate, in the detail and in the aggregate, both the minute and the great throughout the universe; to observe their beautiful arrangement and harmony, and the wondrous unity of design in all the parts: a unity which at once prostrates all the absurdities and contradictions of the far famed polytheistical religion of the Greek and the Roman—the fanciful idolatry and star gazing worship of the Chaldean Shepherd, and the Magi of Babylon—or the more fearful, more mysterious, and yet more ridiculous superstition of the Egyptian priests of old, who at a period far back, when time was yet young, and the history of other nations was scarce begun, officiated in those mighty temples upon the banks of the Nile, whose awful ruins, now scattered through the land of Egypt, tell us of the mighty of the earth, who have lived, and strutted, and bustled for a season, but at the appointed hour, have been cut down like the flower of the field. It is this great, this beautiful unity of design, which we see manifested throughout the works of creation, which proclaims the existence of the one indivisible God, "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance." It is this same unity of design, proclaimed by philosophy and comprehended by reason alone, which so powerfully supports the monotheistic religion of the christian, and sustains that beautiful, humane and generous scheme of salvation foretold by the Jewish prophets of old, and consummated by the sacrifice on Mount Calvary, of the meek and humble Saviour of the world.

Again, when we look abroad to animated creation, and see that man alone has placed within him a principle which guides and directs him, independently of instinct—a principle which, in spite of all the arts of sophistry and self-delusion, tells him in language which cannot be mistaken, that he is responsible for his acts; and when we further see the immense amount of vice and wickedness in this world which does not meet with its deserved punishment here, and virtue failing to receive its reward;—when we behold all this, and reflect, as we cannot fail to do, that the Creator of the world is a God of justice and impartiality, we are at once driven into the belief that there must be a hereafter, where all these things will be equalized. It is when we see the wicked son, the unnatural father, and the fiendish mother—when we peruse the histories of such monsters as Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Louis XI of France, or Richard III of England—of the Tullias, the Messalinas and the Macbeths, that we are forced to acknowledge that there must be a Tartarus. Again, we meet with humble virtue and piety in this world, possessed by those who labor and toil through life, sometimes groaning under the oppression of a cruel persecutor, who, bloated with vice, is nevertheless wallowing in apparent luxury and ease, while the victims of his oppression are overwhelmed with every calamity and misfortune "which flesh is heir to"—each one of whom, in the hour of death, may truly say, in the pathetic language of the patriarch of old, "short, but replete with woe has been my day." When we contemplate this, the mind does not rest satisfied, without an elysium where the weary are to be at rest, and the wicked to cease from troubling. "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old—yea, are mighty in power? Is there no reward for the righteous? is there no punishment for the workers of iniquity? is there no God that judgeth in the earth?" It is only the awful retribution of a hereafter which can satisfactorily explain to all

Not only, however, does our belief in the supreme benevolence and justice of the deity, force upon us the conviction of a future state of rewards and punishments; but the very contemplation of the human mind, with its faculties and passions, points us to another world. We have faculties which are capable of ranging beyond the sphere in which we move. We have longings which this world, with all its stores of provisions, cannot satisfy. These faculties and these longings point distinctly to another world. Lord Bacon has truly asserted, that if the child in its mother's womb could reason like a philosopher—could survey its little hands, mouth, eyes, feet, lungs, &c. and perceive that they discharged no adequate functions in the womb, he would, if impressed with the belief of the wisdom and design of creation, come necessarily to the conclusion that this was not the place of his permanent abode—that he was ultimately to be ushered into some other world, where all his physical energies and intellectual powers would be brought into play, and have an ample field to range in. So likewise, if I may use the beautiful language of Dugald Stewart, "When tired and disgusted with this world of imperfections, we delight to contemplate another, where the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom, and where new sources of enjoyment are opened, suited to the vast capacities of the human mind." And thus do we find both instinct and reason contending alike for the truth of the great principles of religion.

With these preliminary remarks, I will now proceed to examine into the differences between the sexes in a religious point of view; and here I may assert at once, without the fear of contradiction, that woman always has been, and is now, in almost every country upon the face of the globe, more religious than man. This difference between the sexes is still more striking under the christian dispensation, than under any other religion perhaps, which has ever existed in the world. In our own country, we all know that the female communicants form an immense majority in all our churches. "Very many of them (says Timothy Dwight in the 4th vol. of his Travels, and no one was better qualified to speak on this subject)—very many of them are distinguished for moral excellence—are unaffectedly pious, humble, benevolent, patient and self-denying. In this illustrious sphere of distinction, they put our own sex to shame. Were the church of Christ stripped of her female communicants, she would lose many of her brightest ornaments, and I fear, two-thirds of her whole family."¹

¹ I have no doubt that President Dwight has underrated the number of female communicants in the United States. From conversations with the most intelligent of the clergy, I should be disposed to say they formed three-fourths, or four-fifths of the communicants.

How then does it happen that woman is more religious than man—that she is every where found yielding a more ready and more perfect devotion to the God of nature? We have seen that instinct, feeling and reason concur in the support of religion. Which of these is the main impelling cause with woman? I am disposed to say the two former. She is not so much disposed to skepticism as man; she does not wait for the slow deductions of reason, before she is willing to yield her assent. She does not withhold her belief, like man, until she can contemplate the power, majesty and unity of the deity, in the countless millions of bright orbs, rolling in harmony and magnificence, along those complicate and luminous paths which have been assigned to them in the infinitudes of space. She does not wait until she can descend from the contemplation of this grand, this sublime prospect, to the infinitesimally minute parts of nature, and view with the eye of philosophy, their order, harmony and design, where she may behold the existence of deity proclaimed in those countless millions of millions of animalculæ, which escape the unassisted vision of man—each one displaying a form, a structure, a complexity of organs as perfect, as beautiful, as well adapted to the sphere in which he moves, on that little atom of creation, which is a world to him, as the grandest and most imposing animals of nature. No! She does not require for the generation of her faith, thus to be able to range from the bottom to the top of creation—from the infinitely small to the infinitely great—to behold in the vast and the minute

She looks into her own heart, and finds there the want of a consoling religion. She looks into the pages of holy writ, and builds her faith on the revealed will of her Maker. "Thus saith the Lord," is the simple but stable foundation on which her hopes are rested. With man, religion is much more a matter of speculation, of reason and philosophy, than with woman.

Let us now investigate, if possible, the causes of this very interesting difference between the sexes.

And in the first place, it is in a great measure attributable to the peculiar education of the sex. I mean the education which woman receives from her parents and teachers. The education of man is much more scientific, according to the present custom of society, than that of woman. Science, as we shall soon see, whilst it enlarges the powers of comprehension and ratiocination, by leading us into the mysteries of nature, and teaching us the "causas rerum," is calculated at the same time rather to curb the feelings, and to control the imagination. The consequence is, that a scientific education fortifies the mind against the too ready admission of doctrines, whatever they may be, and prevents us from yielding assent to truths, when we are not prepared to give a reason for the faith that is within us. In the education of woman, every thing is done to preserve her native feelings in all their original purity and strength. Her studies are of a more light and literary cast, such as administer to the imagination or warm the sensibilities. In her case the play of the instincts and of the feelings is not cramped by the controlling influence of logic and reason; and hence, no doubt, one cause of the religious differences between the sexes.

For the same reason, the religious enthusiasm of woman, is very apt to degenerate into superstition—that of man, into dogmatism and fanaticism. Woman, generally, cares very little for mere creeds and doctrines, but is apt to believe in miraculous interpositions, and a special providence. Woman possesses more devotion and more genuine love for her God—her eye is fixed on heaven, and the ardor of her religious aspirations always points her to the glorious mansion prepared on high; where, in the fulness of her devotion and piety, surrounded by the bright effulgence of the throne of omnipotence, she may pour forth the torrent of her love in hymns sung to the praise of her Maker. She looks to this grand, this glorious end, and prays to her God that it may be hers, and that he will direct her into the right path.

Man, on the other hand, is so much taken up by the study and investigation of the circumstances which attend him on his religious journey through life, that he forgets in the scrupulous study of his means, the end and object of all his devotion. It is not only necessary with him, that he should go to heaven, but he is too often resolved to go there in no other way than his own. And we may almost assert with the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that by his vain reasonings, and quibbles, and sophisms, he sometimes so narrows the bridge which is to conduct us to a blissful eternity, as almost to reduce its width to that of a razor's edge, to be walked over only by those whose sophisticated intellects can comprehend the absurd jargon of his theologico-metaphysical creed. It was very difficult during the middle ages, to engage the females in those tremendous, but nonsensical disputes between the Realists and Nominalists, which involved the peace and happiness of whole nations. What cared they about universals genera and species. Little did they concern themselves with the learned disputes of the Thomists, the Scotists, and the Occamites. The amors of Peter Abelard, were much more interesting to them, than his voluminous dissertations upon the Scholastic Theology. And we can well imagine, that few women would care to read that mighty production of the Angelical Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas, bearing the imposing title of Summa Totius Theologiæ, containing the formidable amount of 1,250 folio pages of very small print in double columns, with 19 more of errata, and 200 of index. But enough of this. Some of the other sex even may now sicken at the idea of encountering a work so formidable as this, although it be upon the vital subject of theology.

Women are much more superstitious, generally, as I have already remarked, than men. They much more readily believe in dreams, visions and miraculous interferences. Women deeply in love, have often been known to die from the effects of unfavorable dreams about a distant lover, in a perilous situation. McNish, in his interesting work on the Philosophy of Sleep, tells us of a young lady, a native of Ross-shire, who was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore in the Peninsular war. The constant danger to which he was exposed, had, of course, a very great effect on her spirits. One night, after falling asleep, she imagined she saw her lover pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that he had been slain in battle, desiring her at the same time to comfort herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. "It is needless," says McNish, "to say what influence this vision had upon a mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the unfortunate girl died a few days thereafter." Many such instances as these might be adduced, where all the explanations and consolations of philosophy have been rejected, and the unfortunate lady has actually died from the grief produced by the confident expectation of the realization of a dream or vision. I can well imagine the eagerness with which the females of antiquity would crowd around their seers, and their oracles, to have unveiled to them the mysteries of the future. Even now, women are much more disposed to consult gypsies and fortune tellers, than men. But they are most apt to incline to these petty superstitions, if I may use the expression, when under the influence of strong passion, such as that of love. We all know, that one deeply in love, is apt to be a little superstitious; and many there are besides the Phebe of Irving, who can wander forth in the "stilly night," when the moon is pouring her silvery radiance over the world, and kneel upon the "stone in the meadow," and repeat the old traditional rhyme

Another reason, no doubt, of the religious differences of the sexes, is the greater demand or want, if I may use the phraseology of political economy, which woman experiences for religion. Her whole education, physical and moral, and her consequent position in society, contribute to the creation of these religious wants. There are times and situations in which we all feel in a very peculiar manner the want of religion. There are periods when the billows of adversity are rolling high and threatening to overwhelm us with ruin—when all our ordinary resources have failed—when there is in this world no arm that can save, no power that can protect us—then does the voice of nature whisper to us to turn to him who hath promised to be a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and to him in the hour of our peril do we address the fervent prayer. There is no part of the Journal of the Landers with which I have been more affected, than that in which John Lander speaks of the disaster of Kirree, while descending the Niger. Himself and brother had been separated, they met again on the river, but in the moment of the most heart-rending peril, when a savage enemy was upon the point of immolating them, and of destroying at once all those bright visions of glory and usefulness, which ever float in the ardent imagination of the traveller, and urge him over seas, and lands, and mountains, and deserts. "This day (says John Lander,) I thought was to be my last, when I looked up and saw my brother at a little distance gazing steadfastly upon me; when he saw that I observed him, he held up his arm with a sorrowful look, and pointed his finger to the skies. O! how distinctly and eloquently were all the emotions of his soul at that moment depicted in his countenance! Who could not understand him. He would have said 'trust in God.' I was touched with grief. Thoughts of home and friends rushed upon my mind, and almost overpowered me. My heart hovered over the scenes of infancy and boyhood. Recollecting myself, I bade them as I thought an everlasting adieu; and weaning my heart and thoughts from all worldly associations, with fervor I invoked the God of my life, before whose awful throne I imagined we should shortly appear, for fortitude and consolation in the hour of trial. My heart became subdued and softened; my mind regained its serenity and composure; and though there was nothing but tumult and distraction without, within all was tranquillity and resignation." And thus do we find that adversity often leads us to pay devotion to our God. When the treasures of this world in which the heart dwelt are swept away, we are more disposed to look to the imperishable treasures of another world. "When there is no object on this side the grave on which to fix our hopes, we delight to extend them beyond the troubled horizon which bounds our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of futurity,"

On the other hand, how truly dismal and appalling at such hours as those I have been describing, is the condition of the genuine Atheist. When the plans, and projects, and schemes of this world have failed him, and all his earthly hopes are untimely blighted by the sad strokes of cruel fortune; where is his consolation—where his refuge? Shall he turn to those whom the world once called his friends? Alas! they were with him in summer and sunshine, when his flocks were feeding on a hundred hills—when his indiscriminate and boundless hospitality was the theme of praise on the tongue of the selfish and sycophantic sensualist, who delighted in his "glutton meal;" and his splendid mansion was the scene of music and of revelry. In the hour of his bereavement they turn from him, and even mock him in his misfortunes! Shall he attempt again to mend his broken fortunes and rise once more in the world's thought? Perhaps some insuperable barrier stands before him; friends have deserted him, and old age may be fast incapacitating him to run again the race of earthly ambition; and the base treachery of friends, and the mortifying neglect of a cold and selfish world, may have implanted in his heart, the deep and uneradicable feeling of dark and gloomy misanthropy, which may forever unfit him for wearing the world's honors, or coveting the world's praise. Shall he throw his thoughts beyond this world's horizon, and look with the spirit of prayer and supplication to heaven for that support and consolation which is denied him here? No! no! His fatal skepticism prevents his hopes from resting on another world. It shuts him up here amid all the gloom and horror of his terrestrial mansion—concentrates all his dismal thoughts within his own overwhelmed soul, and leaves him a prey to misery and despondency.

I hope then I have said enough to show that there are times and seasons when the heart of man turns instinctively to the God of nature for support; that there are times when philosophy, and science, and friendship, all must fail to administer consolation to the oppressed heart:—it is then that religion and religion alone can furnish the balm that can neutralize woe. Under its benign influence the billows of adversity may roll on—they may break over our heads, but cannot overwhelm the soul when sheltered securely under its divine panoply.

Now let us inquire whether woman experiences oftener than man those moments of sorrow and affliction, which religion alone can assuage; and this inquiry, I think, must be answered by all, in the affirmative. The sorrows, and griefs, and trials of woman, are not of so palpable, conspicuous, and sometimes violent a character as are those of man. They do not attract so universally the gaze of the world—their consequences are not so extensive—they do not so much occupy the pen of the historian, or draw forth the speculations of philosophy; but they are more numerous, more secret; and for this very reason more calculated to turn her to her God for consolation. I have already in the preceding number shown, that woman, from her position in society, is obliged to conceal more than man. She experiences many sorrows and afflictions, which like the Viola of Shakspeare, she never tells to any one, but keeps them locked up in her own bosom to brood over in solitude. Rousseau says, a man truly happy, neither speaks much nor laughs much—he hugs, so to speak, the happiness to his heart. "Il reserre, pour ainsi dire, le bonheur autour de son coeur." The assertion which Rousseau here makes concerning the happiness of man, is strictly true, when applied to the misery of woman—especially to that most numerous class of her griefs which spring from wounded affections. This species of misery, if I may borrow the pencil of Rousseau "elle reserre autour de son coeur." Her shrinking modesty dares not confess it to the world; sometimes even the penetrating scrutiny of an affectionate mother is shunned and deceived. What then is her resource? She knows there is a God who inhabiteth the high and lofty places of eternity, who has promised to turn from none who seek him—she feels that all her sorrows are known to him. She can truly exclaim in the language of the Psalmist, "thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting, mine uprising: thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compasseth my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord! thou knowest it altogether." With this being then, who already knows all her afflictions, does she commune—to him she pours forth the torrent of her feelings, and tells the tale of her concentrated woe, which no vulgar ear shall ever hear. This communion becomes sweet to her in the hour of her afflictions, and she bestows upon him who has promised to be the friend of the disconsolate and broken-hearted, that love which perhaps has been slighted and despised by another. "As the dove (says Irving,) will clasp its wings to its sides, and cover and conceal the wound that is preying on its vitals—so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. Even when fortunate she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace."

It is at such times as these she feels the great want of religion; and accordingly we find that on tracing the history of woman, we often see her religious career commencing after some great disappointment—after some cruel stroke which has been inflicted on the feelings and affections. In Catholic countries we frequently see women, after these great disappointments, retiring from the world and immuring themselves for the remainder of their lives within the walls of a nunnery, where at a distance from the world and free from the rude gaze of an inquisitive society, they may spend the remainder of their days in silent and pensive melancholy, softened and ameliorated by sweet communion with God. You rarely hear of this on the part of man. If he survives the misfortunes that for a time have oppressed him, he plunges into the active business and bustle of the world, and in the midst of his employments he finds new occupation for his mind—he summons it away from the contemplation of his grief. New feelings are called into play, and often succeed in banishing the old. How often do we find ambition becoming the succedaneum of love.

But woman has not this opportunity of withdrawing herself from the scenes of her misfortunes and griefs. Every object around her reflects back their images upon her mind; and, go where she will, she is still like those unfortunate beings, laboring under the illusions of spectral apparitions;—the phantoms are around her still, gazing on her with lurid glare whilst awake, haunting her whilst asleep. Nothing but religion can afford her solace, under afflictions so oppressive and crushing. Without it, she may well exclaim in the language of the "Dirge,"

In addition to what is said above, it may be observed that the physical infirmities of woman, are greater than those of man; she is liable to sudden changes in health, which endanger her life. Every child which comes into the world, is an admonition to the mother on the precariousness of human life, and the necessity of living in a state of constant preparation for another world.

Another cause, no doubt, of the more religious character of woman, is her greater feebleness and dependence upon the powers around her, than that felt by man. When we look to the stupendous mechanism of the heavens and the earth, and contemplate the mighty powers that are at work in the universe, the mind naturally turns, in the spirit of devotion and prayer, to that infinite, incomprehensible, mysterious being, who guides and directs those powers. When we contemplate, for example, the globe on which we stand—think of it as moving at the rate of more than sixty thousand miles per hour, around that luminous orb, which at the distance of millions of miles, binds it down to its prescribed orbit; when we think again of this mass on which we stand, vast and grand to us, but an atom to him who placed it here, rolling on its axis, carrying us forward with a compound velocity, which if it could be suddenly arrested by some opposing mass competent to the resistance, would be sufficient to tear from their bases all the mountains and hills of the earth, and hurl their scattered fragments o'er the vallies—a velocity, whose sudden cessation would prostrate alike the animal and vegetable kingdoms, burying all in one common chaotic ruin, from which no one being would escape to sing the funeral dirge of a dead world. When we contemplate all this, and know that there is a hand competent to the control of these mighty powers; that under its influence, while thus rapidly hurled along through the illimitable regions of space, the busy operations of men are going forward; that the grand tower, the enormous pyramid, the slender reed, and the delicate spire of grass, stand alike unaffected and unshaken by this velocity; that the slumbers of the infant on its little couch, and the spider weaving her delicate web in the "autumnal fields," are alike undisturbed;—when we look again, and contemplate that thin elastic medium which we breathe, covering the earth like an invisible mantle, all quiet and calm at the sunset hour, so that even the thistle-down lies still and motionless on the earth's surface; then think again of that same medium, lashed into the fearful tempest, spreading dismay and destruction along its desolating track, and scattering the mariner and his cargoes over the billows of the sea; or when we contemplate that principle of heat which pervades the universe, constituting the great vis vivica, or enlivening power of nature,—so placid, so sweet, and it would scarcely be metaphor to add, so tender, as it exists around us in the mild and bland atmosphere of a summer's morning, when

And then think again of this same agent confined in the earth's mass; by its sudden action laying hold on the globe with the grasp of more than ten thousand giants, upheaving the dense and mighty stratum which lies above it, shaking whole continents by its power, and burying the toppling cities with the accumulated wealth of ages under its fearful ruins; when we contemplate, I say, all these powers around us, we see our dependence on them, and again their dependence on omnipotence. The feeling of dependence forced upon the mind, begets a spirit of devotion and trust towards the God of nature. At first, overwhelmed by the evidences of mighty power exerted around and over us, we are almost disposed to cry out in the language of holy writ, "what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst deign to visit him." But our confidence revives when we recollect the promise that "if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith."

This spirit of dependence, wherever felt, always begets more or less a religious spirit of devotion. It is this spirit which, in ages of ignorance and superstition, begets the worship of heroes, of statesmen, and philanthropists. It is this spirit which has added such as Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Isis, Osiris, &c. to the vast catalogue of the gods in the polytheistic religions of antiquity. It is this same spirit, which makes the subordinate officer and the soldier, look with awe and the most confident reliance on the successful military chieftain, who has so often manoeuvred them like a machine, and has gained victory after victory by those rapid combinations and skilful evolutions, which to the mind that does not comprehend, appear to be the result of inspiration rather than the effects of human wisdom. Wherever in fine, there is a system of dependence, there you will find always more or less a spirit of reverence. How intensely does this spirit manifest itself in a father or mother, who has knelt before an emperor or king, and obtained the pardon of a condemned son. Now, as I have already observed, woman feels this dependency much more strongly than man. She is the weaker vessel, and hence there is a devotional feeling excited by this dependence, which follows the chain of dependence up, link by link, until it reaches the throne of omnipotence. Woman does not feel this dependence from a contemplation of the mighty physical energies exerted around her by the great powers of nature; but it arises from her greater weakness and dependency when compared with the other sex.

Do we not all know that there is something much more devotional in the love of woman than man—a something much more nearly allied to religion? Do we not know that this same weakness and consequent dependence, makes woman more confiding, more trusting, more submissive than man? She feels much greater veneration for the great and the powerful, and acquiesces much more readily in the tyranny and oppression of rulers. Even women of the very first order of intellect feel this reliance and trust on the greater powers around them. Mrs. Jameson says, in speaking of the Portia of Shakspeare, "I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also remarkable for this trustingness of spirit, this hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montague was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much more memorable."

The physical weakness of woman and her consequent dependence on man, makes religion more necessary to her for another reason. It is her interest that every restraint should be imposed on the passions of man; that he should walk in the paths of virtue and morality; that his superior strength should be subdued and tempered by motives of humanity. He is then more kind, more attentive, and more loving to her. He is then a better father, a better economist,—in fine, a better citizen, fulfilling more perfectly all the relations of life. The Christian religion, as we shall soon see, is eminently calculated to produce this happy result, and consequently woman is deeply interested in its spread. Let no one start forward with the objection, that in this way she is the better enabled to govern her husband. I admit this, if, to govern him, means to restrain him from vice and immorality; but surely this is a government which no honest good citizen can object to. Every lady has a fearfully deep interest in the whole character and temperament of her husband's mind and feelings. Upon them depend, indeed, her weal or woe. Her condition may be deplorable, and sometimes irremediable, if a wicked husband choose to oppress her. But that is certainly a holy and a virtuous selfishness, if selfishness it can possibly be called, which secures our own welfare and happiness while adding to that of another, by curbing and controlling his more violent and malignant feelings and passions, and attuning the whole inner man to harmony and concord.

Again, the life of woman, as has been before remarked, is much more sedentary, more secluded, and consequently more contemplative than that of man. Solitude and contemplation are very favorable to the production of religious impressions and the generation of a spirit of piety and devotion. Man is so constantly occupied amid the busy scenes of active employment, so much engrossed with his schemes of ambition and self-aggrandizement, so rapidly whirled forward by the eddying current of active life, that he scarcely will take time to pause in the hurry and bustle of existence to contemplate his Maker, and render to him the homage that is his due. Public devotion even often breaks in upon his regular routine of life, and frequently mars some little pet scheme of the day. He is a Sabbath-day worshipper; a worshipper at spare times and leisure seasons. But the solitary chamber of a woman, is often by day and by night, the temple from which in her lone hours she sends her silent prayers to heaven; the temple from which, in her silent meditations, her thoughts wander forth and hold sweet communion with the God of nature.

But, let us investigate a little more philosophically, the effects of this secluded, meditative, contemplative life of woman. And, in the first place, all will acknowledge that occasional solitude and consequent meditation are extremely favorable to the cause of virtue generally. Whilst we are running our dissipated career, under the excitement of the passions, we rarely have time, leisure, and reflection sufficient to determine on reform. "It is not in the madness of intemperate enjoyment," says Dr. Brown, in one of his most brilliant lectures, "that we see drunkenness in the goblet, or disease in the feast. Under the actual seduction of the passion we see dimly, if we see at all, any of the evils to which it leads." It is in the hour of solitude and reflection, that the remorseful thought of our errors and vices, comes across the mind; then, in the coolness and calmness of solitude, can we trace out the blighting evils that are likely to follow on our career; then, and then alone, can we dispassionately view, in the vista of the future, our loss of character, of health and riches, by the course we are pursuing; then we behold the melancholy consequences, widening out, until they embrace our family, friends, neighborhood, and state; we then can summon, in gloomy review before the mind's eye, our wives and children, dearer to us than life, living in penury and misfortune, and perhaps dependent for a scanty subsistence upon the cold hand of charity. When the mind is capable of reflection—of sketching out this sad picture, there may be hopes of reform. The individual is never absolutely, hopelessly lost, who indulges in silent meditations on the past; such an individual may even be saved at the eleventh hour. Hence, too, there is virtue in mere intelligence, because intelligence can always think and meditate. Hence, too, the efficacy of solitary confinement in the gloomy walls of the prison, and the very deleterious influence of all prison discipline not based on the principle of solitary confinement.

Again, any scene of distress, any monuments or associations, which remind us of the instability of the boasted works of man; anything which forces a comparison in the mind between the transitory character and nothingness of the things of earth, when compared with the eternity of ages that are to follow, or with the perfections and immutability of God; all such reflections as these are calculated to make a deep religious impression upon the mind. What classic scholar, for example, can stand upon the Capitol on the Capitoline Mount, in Modern Rome, and look over the mouldering but still magnificent ruins of the imperial city, as they lie scattered and confused over the vallies and the seven hills, and cast a retrospective glance at the ages which have gone by, without a deep feeling of religious awe and of veneration towards the God of nature? When he reflects that the poet of antiquity describes this classic ground, over which the eye of the traveller is now wandering in pensive and bewildering gaze, as a solitary wilderness; when Evander, and afterwards when Æneas came to the Latian Coast; that the brier and the bramble then grew together in wild luxuriance on the Tarpeian Hill; that the foxes had their holes and the birds their nests on the Palatine and the Aventine. When he looks again to the time of the poet, and beholds the proud imperial city, the mistress of the world, enthroned in all her gorgeous splendor and costly magnificence upon the seven hills, wielding the sceptre of her dominion over the earth,

and sees upon the Tarpeian hill, the splendid temple with its golden ornaments and its stately columns, instead of the brier and the bramble, and beholds,

And then looks to her again—when in the awful language of the poet,

and sees that the temple upon the Tarpeian mount has been overthrown and rifled, and the brier and the bramble have come back again, that owl answers owl upon the Palatine, that the din of arms and the active bustle and hum of citizens and functionaries of imperial Rome, have ceased forever on the Appian and Emilian ways, that no stately triumph mounts the Capitoline hill, to administer to the insatiate ambition of the rapacious and remorseless Roman, that

now meets his eye where'er it turns. Well may he exclaim with such a prospect before him, in the language of the same poet,

When he sees all these mutations and revolutions on a single spot of earth, in the hour of his meditations his mind reverts to Him who alone is immutable and unchangeable, upon whose brow, time writes no wrinkles. "Alas, the pride of man goes down with him into the dust! it withers when the lamp of his transient existence flickers out into the long slumbering of the tomb." Eternal youth, eternal majesty, eternal duration, belong only to the great, the unchangeable I AM. The bustling transitory career of the mighty of the earth, when duly contemplated, should but the more strongly impress on the mind the infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of Deity. "Where now are they who sounded the clarion of war along the plains of Thessaly, the mount of Marathon and Samos's rocky isle. The trumpet's voice hath died upon the breeze; the thousands which it aroused have gone to rest; the castles which have been subdued and won, on whose walls the spear glittered and the cannon pealed, have crumbled into dust; the ivy lingers about the decaying turrets; the raven builds her nest in the casement, and sends upon the ear of midnight her desolate wailings; the owl hoots where the song was heard; and man, proud man, who once fought and won—he who reared the structure,"

There is religion, yes a deep abiding religion in such a retrospect as this, and the mind which can trace back in its reflections the history of man along the pathway of ages, and see how dynasties have been overthrown, and thrones crumbled, how nations have risen, flourished for a day, then have declined and fallen, and been numbered among the things that are past and gone, cannot fail to turn, upon the principle of contrast, to the God of nature, whose throne is eternal, and whose dominion can never pass away.

Such may be the salutary effect of the reflection of man, when man reflects. Let us now turn to woman, and see the character of her meditations and reflections. She perhaps may not, in her solitary musing, so much delight, as man, to look to the history of nations, and draw the mighty moral from their fluctuations and vicissitudes. But there are scenes around her—there are events constantly occurring in her own limited sphere, which much more frequently, upon the principles just explained, excite her meditations, and lead her on to religious devotion. Woman, as I before remarked, is the tender, constant, and affectionate nurse of our race. Hers is the heavenly office to watch the sorrows of man and mitigate them, by her sweet, her benevolent ministrations.

Now this contemplation of pain and suffering, notwithstanding all the magnificence which pride or grandeur may spread around the couch of sickness and death, is calculated to force upon the mind the gloomy truth of the instability of the things of earth, and that there is nothing but God upon whom we can rely amid all the vicissitudes of earthly scenes. "The sight of death," says Dr. Brown, "or of the great home of the dead, seldom fails to bring before us our common and equal nature. In spite of all the little distinctions which a churchyard exhibits in mimic imitations, and almost in mockery of the great distinctions of life, the turf, the stone with its petty sculpture, and all the columns and images of the marble monument; as we read the inscription, or walk over the sod, we think only of what lies beneath, in undistinguishable equality." Here then is the scene to which woman in her meditations is oftener transported than man. Our last sufferings are longer remembered by her than by man—they produce a more mighty influence on her mind, and frequently do we see that the death of a child, of a husband, of a brother, sister, parent, or even friend, produces a sudden but lasting impression on woman's mind, arrests her in her gay and thoughtless career—makes her reflect upon the vanities of this world, and in the end is the cause of her being gathered into the fold of the faithful and the righteous, where she can ever after, with truth and feeling, amid all her earthly prosperity, exclaim in the beautiful language of Gray, in his Churchyard,

But one of the most important causes of the religious differences of the sexes, remains yet to be told. It is the character of the christian religion, and its peculiar suitability to the whole female nature and economy. It may boldly, without fear of contradiction be asserted, that never since the foundation of the world, has there been propagated a religion so consolatory to woman in all her sorrows and difficulties—so liberal in promises—so congenial, in fine, with all the undefined wants and longings of her heart, as the Religion of Christ. Throughout the world, in all ages and countries where this religion has not been preached, it may be truly said, that the great religious wants of woman have not been administered to. She has pined, if I may use the expression, for the want of religious culture, and has entirely failed to accomplish, in consequence of it, her sweetest and most graceful destinies on earth.

Shall we turn for example to the boasted polytheistical religion of Greece and Rome? how illy adapted do we find it to the wants, the habits, the sensibilities, and I may add, the virtue and chastity of woman. It is true, that in the innumerable host of their divinities, they numbered some distinguished female goddesses. Minerva, Juno, Diana, Ceres, Venus, &c. occupied very conspicuous stations in the celestial hierarchy. But we are not to infer from this compliment to the ladies, that the religion was one adapted to the female character. When we come to examine it, we perceive at once its barbarous and uncivilized origin, and see that the progress of science and civilization in Greece and Rome, merely refined and polished it, without adapting it to the real wants of society, or purging it of its enormities and vices.

In the first place, Jupiter, the king of the gods, who could shake all Olympus with his nod, was not omnipotent. He was restrained by the fates, and in constant apprehension of combinations among other gods, to resist or cheat him. Nor was Jupiter, with all the gods to back him, omnipotent. On one occasion, they were all thrown into consternation, by the formidable array of the giants, who were attempting to pile mountain on mountain, Ossa upon Pelion, in order that they might scale the ramparts of heaven. This great dread proved the want of omnipotence. Again; Xenophon tells us that the Lacedemonians used to send up their prayers early in the morning, to be beforehand with their enemies. Sometimes, according to Seneca, persons bribed the sexton in the temple to secure a place near the god, so that he might the more certainly hear them. When the Tyrians were besieged by Alexander the Great, they chained the Hercules in the temple to prevent his desertion. Augustus Cæsar, after twice losing his fleet by storm, determined to insult Neptune, the god of the sea, publicly; and therefore ordered that he should not be carried in procession with the other gods. And we are told, that after the death of Germanicus in Rome, who was a great favorite with the people, they were so much incensed with the gods, that they stoned and renounced them.

In the Iliad, after the celebrated quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, when the latter urges his mother Thetis, to lay his complaints before Jupiter, she tells him that Jupiter has gone in procession with the other gods, to pay honors to the Ethiopians, and on his return, she will present his petition. But besides the want of omnipotence in one or all the gods combined, the polytheistical religion presented a multitude of gods, among whom reigned the wildest disorders, the fiercest contentions, and the most revolting vices and crimes. Jupiter was the king of heaven, and he ruled not like the Jehovah of the christian, with mildness and love, but depended upon his thunder and his might. By these terrible means and not by love for him, his subjects were kept in awe. Listen to him in the 8th book of the Iliad, where he forbids the gods to take any part in the contest between the Greeks and Trojans. I give Pope's translation. Jupiter does not speak in the language of mildness, but threatens and denounces the most cruel punishment for disobedience, merely because his power enables him to enforce it.

And the gods obeyed, not from love or affection to Jupiter, but from absolute terror, inspired by his power.

Poor Juno, the ox-eyed Juno, the unfortunate wife of the Olympic thunderer, was the most unhappy of women, eternally quarrelling with her imperial husband and complaining of his partiality to her enemies. Minerva, too, more beloved by Jupiter than his own wife, complains of him as raging with an evil mind, in perpetual opposition to her inclinations. Old Vulcan, it is well known, got his lameness by being thrown out of heaven by Jupiter in a mad fit, occasioned by Vulcan's interference in behalf of Juno, when persecuted by her unreasonable and irascible husband.

The gods, too, are represented as frequently engaged in actual strife with men, and with one another. In the 20th book of the Iliad, when Jupiter permits the gods to enter the hitherto forbidden field of Troy, and take sides according to their inclinations, we have a regular battle between them. Diomed wounds no less than two gods in the engagement; Venus, who went off weeping to Jupiter, and Mars, the great god of war. In the same engagement, we have Neptune pitted against Apollo, the god of the sun, and Pallas or Minerva, matched with Mars, and actually prostrating him by a huge rock, a most unfeminine, unlady-like act.

This wise, but most austere and forbidding old maid, appears truly terrific in this battle of the gods, and seems an overmatch for all, save the Olympic thunderer.

But again, the morals of the gods were of the most corrupt and profligate character. Jupiter was the greatest rake of all the ancient world. How many wives and maidens was he represented as seducing by the most unfair means? and so regardless was he of his wife Juno, that she was obliged to borrow the girdle and charms of Venus, when she wished to captivate the thunderer. The historian tells us that the Amphitrion of Aristophanes, was supposed in Greece, to be very pleasing to Jupiter—that he was like all rakes, exceedingly fond of the recital of his prowess in the arts of love and seduction. Venus, the goddess of beauty, as we might well suppose, after hearing a description of her ungainly hard favored husband, was no better than the thunderer. Her levities bred disturbances in heaven, and heroes on earth.² In view of these circumstances, no one need wonder at the account which St. Peter gives of the Gentiles in his time, that "they walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries."

² The Trojan wanderer, the hero of the Æneid, was the son of Venus, by Anchises a mortal.

Besides all this, the polytheistical religion was entirely inattentive to all those rules of morality which civilize and humanize the race of man, while they bind them together in peace and harmony like a band of brothers. Minerva, for example, is represented in the 4th book of the Iliad, as advising Pandarus to endeavor to bribe Apollo with the promise of a Hecatomb to assist him in assassinating Menalaus, contrary to the faith of a solemn treaty; and even Jupiter himself joins with that goddess and Juno in promoting so foul a murder. When we consider the vices and immoralities of the heavenly host, and then think of the virtues of the first Romans, we are almost disposed to assert with Rousseau, that virtue seemed to have been banished from heaven's confines, to take up her residence on earth. Did human nature in the ancient world, ever appear in a more stern and dignified attitude, than when Lucretia was represented as worshipping Venus, and still plunging the dagger in her bosom, because she had lost her virtue? What a practical rebuke was here given to the lascivious queen of beauty.

I need scarcely conclude this little episode in which I have been indulging, by the assertion that such a religion was unsuited to the wants of the human race, but particularly of woman. She likes to send from her closet, or from her silent and solitary chamber her prayers to heaven. She therefore requires an all-seeing, all-searching eye, which can behold her in the prayerful moments of her solitude. She likes to commune with a God who is omnipotent and able to heal and save. Her nature shudders at the conflicts and broils of the gods of the heathen—at their immoralities and vices. The female deities are all gross, lewd, masculine conceptions, unworthy of the delicacy, chastity, modesty and grace of the virtuous female. The gods were all unworthy of her confidence and entire trustingness. Where is the virtuous woman of the modern world, who, in the hour of affliction and trial, would unbosom herself before so terrible, so wicked, and so licentious a being as the Jupiter of the ancients? Or what female could bear to contemplate the amours of Venus, or to imitate the acts, and the monstrous immorality of the goddess of wisdom. Well then might the worshippers of such beings be described as "dead in trespasses and sins," and well might St. John, in view of such a religion, exclaim "the whole world lieth in wickedness."

If we turn from the Polytheistic religion of the ancient world, to the Monotheistic religion of the Mohammedan, we shall find the whole of this system more gloomy, more revolting, and more repugnant to woman's feelings, than even the Polytheistical. The fiery warlike character of the prophet, the propagation of the religion by fire and sword—the total degradation of the female character—the seraglio and the attendant eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the black-eyed Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a moment. We are not to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian females all over the world towards the moslem. Women have always attended in considerable numbers the armies of Europe, when it was threatened with invasion by the devastating armies of the Turks. D'Israeli in his very interesting collection of the curiosities of literature, has a chapter on "events, which have not happened," and gives us some speculations on the fate of Europe, if the Saracens under Abderam had beaten Charles Martel at Tours. What woman now moving with freedom and grace in the social circles of christendom, but shudders at the bare idea of such a result.

Let us now turn to the religion of Christ, and contemplate its character for a moment. And here shall we find a religion in every respect suited to the character of woman. It has been truly and emphatically pronounced to be a religion of love. The very scheme of salvation was conceived by the Almighty in a spirit of love. God is represented as so loving the world, that he gave his only begotten Son to save it. And when that Son came into the flesh, and was asked by the Pharisees for the most important commandments of the law, Christ answered, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind; and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Now I have already shown in my first number, that woman loves more tenderly, more devotedly, and constantly than man. This religion of Christ, then, above every other, is fitted for that deep abiding love which woman feels so much oftener than man. It is eminently and peculiarly adapted to that being whose whole history has been pronounced to be a history of the affections. "There is nothing surely on earth (says Mrs. Butler,) that can satisfy and utterly fulfil the capacity for loving, which exist in every woman's nature. Even when her situation in life is such as to call forth and constantly keep in exercise the best affections of her heart, as a wife and a mother; it still seems to me as if more would be wanting to fill the measure of yearning tenderness, which like an eternal fountain gushes up in every woman's heart; therefore, I think it is, that we turn, in the plenitude of our affections, to that belief which is a religion of love, where the broadest channel is open to receive the devotedness, the clinging, the confiding trustfulness, which are idolatry when spent upon creatures like ourselves, but becomes a holy worship when offered to heaven."³

³ In an Epistle supposed to be written by the famous Abbé Rencé, of la Trappe, this alliance between love and religion is well described, though rather too much in the peculiar style of a thoughtless Frenchman, "Je n'avois plus d'amante (says the Abbé,) il me fallùt un dieu."

But again—was there ever a being so congenial, so suitable to the character of woman, as the Saviour of the world. He condescended to be born of woman. Mary was his mother; and while executing the high behests of his father on earth, he treated his mother with the most affectionate and filial tenderness. And then his character was all mildness and meekness. He who could come forth in all the might of his father,

hurl the fearful host of fallen and rebellious angels into the bottomless pit, and chain them there through the endless ages of eternity—could, whilst in this world, bear the scoffings, the revilings, the buffetings of sinful man, could beg his father to forgive his persecutors, because they knew not what they did. His dominion in this world was not based upon violence, devastation and bloodshed. In his glorious career, he made no widows and orphans. Wherever he moved, he carried consolation and healing to the lowly and the humble. He restored the sick, and made the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the dead to come forth from their sepulchres. His kingdom was one of peace, and harmony, and forbearance. He commanded his disciples to love one another, and to serve his father in spirit and in truth. He did not, like Mohammed, exclude woman from an equal participation in all the promises of the gospel; and he declared that Mary and Martha had chosen that good part which should not be taken from them. Woman ministered to him while on earth; she was with him at the cross; she was with him at his grave:

The religion of the cross has been very truly pronounced to be a species of legislation in behalf of the rights of woman. The promulgation of the new gospel elevated her at once to that station which she deserves, and which adds so much to the refinement, happiness and prosperity of the world. Compare the woman of the modern with her of the ancient world; compare the woman of christendom with her of the heathen, and then will you behold the mighty agency of the religion of Christ in the amelioration of her destiny. Well then may woman cleave to this religion, as the ark of her safety and dependence. Well may she worship the Saviour of the world, for he was the true friend of woman—the husband to the widow, and father to the fatherless.

Woman is most deeply interested in the success of every scheme which curbs the passions and enforces a true morality. She is the weaker portion of the human family. When wickedness reigns in the land, and might is recognized as constituting right, she is always the great sufferer. Behold her among barbarians—among nations and people engaged in deadly strife, and how miserable do you always find her condition. Now the new gospel, in addition to the best religion which has ever been given to the world, contains likewise the very best system of morality. I have always thought that it was one of the most beautifully characterising traits of the christian religion, that it has ever been found better and better adapted to our condition, as the human race advances in civilization, knowledge and morality; and in this respect, no religion was ever found like it. The sermon of Christ on the mount, contains a system of morality which will be more and more appreciated as long as the world stands.

In giving an account of the causes of religious differences between the sexes, I have not adverted to the effects produced by physiological differences of the nervous systems of the sexes. The whole frame and nervous system of woman, is said to be much more delicate and sensitive than that of man. Hence an additional tendency to the reception of quick and sudden impressions of all kinds. Hence too, the great proneness of woman to irritation and to hysteric affections,⁴ and her liability to great and frequently overpowering excitement, in those religious congregations where enthusiasm is propagated by contagion. I have frequently seen indiscriminate multitudes assembled together for worship, when every soul was concentrated, and every mind was mingled in the same thought; when all hearts were blended in song—"The poor man by the side of the rich, without being jealous, had forgotten his miseries—the rich man had learned his indigence." All seemed to have obtained intelligence of their bright celestial destiny; all seemed prepared for it, rejoicing together, and all seemed advancing towards it. On these occasions, I have always witnessed more feeling, more earnestness, and more enthusiasm among the women than the men; and not unfrequently have I seen them cry aloud, and continue in a state of violent agitation for many minutes. The greater nervous irritability of the female then, must certainly be ranked among the causes of her peculiarly religious temperament. But I will not dwell longer on the causes of the religious differences between the sexes. It is sufficient to know that woman is more religious every where than man, and that the causes assigned for this difference, if not the only ones, are certainly the most important and most powerful in their operation. I will conclude my remarks on this deeply interesting subject, by a brief consideration of some of the effects of religion on the character of woman.

⁴ Babington tells us, that in orphan asylums, hospitals and convents, the effect of contagion is so great, that the nervous disorder of one female easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all. He tells us, upon the authority of a medical work, on which he places the most implicit reliance, of a large convent in France, where the example of one female who imitated the mewing of a cat, set the whole convent to mewing, so as to make every day a complete cat concert. And upon the authority of Carden, he tells of a nun in a German convent, who commenced biting her companions like a mad dog. The contagion spread from one to the other, until all in the nunnery were affected with this rabid humor, which spread from convent to convent until it reached Rome. These cases, however, if they actually occurred, were of a very extraordinary character, and could only happen under such circumstances as generally attend on the secluded, contemplative and eccentric life of a convent, which nature never intended to be the life of a rational, active, social being.

Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life, those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish, and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit, and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."

The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature. It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr. Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror, than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles." Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the two.⁵ How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an angel; he is ready to make every sacrifice for her; he kneels at her shrine; he worships, he adores her; 'tis heaven where she is, torment where she is not.

⁵ He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of devotion."

I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions, were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study.

This being was not an unbeliever, but yet he was indifferent towards religion. As soon, however, as he had felt the sweet influence of human love, his mind assumed decidedly a religious cast; his thoughts were more frequently turned on high. He declared, in the plenitude of his affections, that he felt an indescribable pleasure in kneeling beside the object of his affections at the altar, and mingling his prayers with hers. He felt a deeper veneration and love for the God of nature, because that God was loved by her, whose pure love, in his mind at least, could sanctify and hallow every object which it embraced. Reader! you who have wandered into distant climes, have you not sometimes at sunset hour, when the great orb of day was pouring his last flood of dimmed light over a world fast sinking into rest, when every breeze had died away and every noise was hushed, reflected, with feelings which no language could adequately describe, that the same great luminary might be shedding his light on the dear friends of your bosom, and that she whom you most tenderly loved, might then, perhaps far away, be gazing on the same object? With feelings like these, would the being just described direct his prayers and thoughts to heaven. It almost seemed to him that they met hers there, and held communion together.

And yet, be not surprised, he never told his tale of love to her! She might have known it, for acts and looks are more eloquent than words. But the impression produced on this individual by the absorbing affection which he felt for one pious woman, remained with him; he declares that the bare remembrance of her who seems to him even now a vision of loveliness and piety on earth, has made him a better and a holier man. He can truly and feelingly declare in those exquisite lines of Petrarch's, whose beauty no translation can express,

Yes, and there are thousands besides who, like him, have been indebted to pious females for that "sweet light" which illumines the path to heaven.

I have already said that the female communicants in our country, form from two-thirds to three-fourths of the whole church. If you will examine into this small comparative number of male communicants, you will find that one-half, or perhaps three-fourths have been brought into the church either directly or indirectly by female influence. But we must remember that this great, this salutary influence of woman, is exercised through the medium of her example, and of the sweet propriety and purity of her demeanor before God and man. She need not preach her own goodness, like the Pharisee; she need not obtrude her sentiments, with the enthusiasm of the fanatic, on those around her. It is not her province to go upon the highway and compel all to come in to the feast. She is not the being to force you by denunciation and terror, to enter the church; all this is offensive, but particularly so in a modest female.⁶

⁶ St. Peter speaks in the following terms, to christian ladies whose husbands were not yet converted to the new faith: "Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also without the word, may be won by the conversation of the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." This recommendation of the apostle, marks out the true province of woman in matters of religion.

Under the present system of education it is rarely the case that woman can discuss with grace, and elegance, and truth, the doctrinal points of religion. "Judge not that ye be not judged," is a text which every woman should bear constantly in mind. A female persecutor is the most odious of her sex. I have often thought that the bigoted, bloody-minded Mary, queen of England, was the most unlovely woman mentioned in the page of English history; and we can scarcely blame her equally bigoted husband, in withholding all affection and love from a woman who resembled him so closely. I do not believe that even the bigoted husband can love a ferocious, blood-thirsty, bigoted wife.

Mrs. Sandford blames those enthusiastic females "who wander about from house to house, retailing the spiritual errors of the day, feeling the religious pulse, dispensing prescriptions, and giving notoriety, at least, to every new nostrum which would impose on the credulity of weak and wayward christians; going about with their little casket of specifics, they excite and foster the diseases they affect to cure." Such enthusiasm as this, she well observes, "bears not the rose of Sharon, but the apple of discord: not clusters of the celestial vine, but spurious berries, which have the form, but not the sweetness of the genuine fruit." There is a something in the quiet, meek, gentle, and unobtrusive aspect and demeanor of the truly pious woman, which, of itself, produces a mighty influence on the other sex. In the collection of Lely's famous Windsor Beauties, there is one which strikes the eye of the beholder, and rivets it in steadfast and extatic gaze, it is the picture of Mrs. Nott. In Mrs. Jameson's description of those Beauties, I have been more struck with Mrs. Nott, although her tale is untold, than with any in the collection, not excepting even the beautiful, the lovely Miss Hamilton. This fair creature is represented with her book, and her flowers, and her village church, in the back ground. These are the beautiful and graceful appendages of piety and virtue. "As for the picture," says Mrs. J. "it is some satisfaction to know, that slander has never breathed upon those features to sully them to our fancy; that sorrow, which comes to all, can never come there." Gazing on such a lovely, I had like to have said holy picture, well might she exclaim, "Is there no power in conjuration to make those ruby lips unclose and reveal all we long to know? Are they forever silent? The soul that once inhabited there, that looked through those mild eyes, the heart that beat beneath that modest vest; are they fled and cold? And of all the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the joys, the fears, 'the hoard of unsunn'd griefs' that once had their dwelling there; is this—this surface—where beauty yet lives, 'clothed in the rainbow tints of heaven,' but mute, cold, impassive—all that remains." And such will ever be the curiosity which a meek, beautiful, and pious female, will excite in the bosom of sensibility and affection.

LIONEL GRANBY.

The gentle ease, and simple tranquillity which reigned at Chalgrave, found me its most obedient vassal. I lounged in the library the whole day, devouring with a morbid appetite, romance, poetry, and light fantasy. I shunned the gay circle of its inmates, not through misanthropy or boyish modesty, but from an utter contempt of the form and spirit of social intercourse. I communed alone with myself, and in the wanton dreams which a sickly fancy conjured before me, I was alternately the victim of caprice, restlessness, and disquietude. Though secluded I was not solitary—though a hermit I was not a misanthrope. Arthur Ludwell was a little nucleus, about whom the affections and friendships of the whole household gathered themselves. His occasional visits to the library—his frank and open address, and his serious and manly sense, all conspired to teach me the value of his usefulness, and the degradation of my own worthlessness. He could laugh at my sentimental reveries, yet he had a deep and chastened taste for poetry; and though he was in the full tide of elastic youth, he could read me a homily on the errors of an ill regulated mind, with all the grave solemnity of referend age. His expostulations—the remonstrances of my mother, and the broad hints about bad breeding which the old dining-room servant gave me, could not seduce me from my much loved retreat. I adhered to its fascinations even as the ivy to the falling tower, and was simple enough to believe that wisdom was gained by the bopeep game between reason, fancy and folly.

One morning while I was engaged in my usual speculations, the door of the library was suddenly opened, and Lucy entered, exclaiming! "Your cousin Isa has arrived; shut your books! and do, my dear Lionel, arrange your disordered dress. Look at your dishevelled hair. 'Twill curl in graceful ringlets! and now do take it away from your pale and melancholy brow." Twining her fingers in my hair, "I declare," cried she, "I will not leave you till you come into the parlor. Isa is a lovely girl, and is now receiving the affectionate salutations of the whole family. Do, for my sake! for our mother's! and for the character of the name you bear, grant my request." I could not hesitate, when she impressed her entreaty with a kiss; and promising that I would appear before my cousin, I soon commenced the unusual labors of my toilette. I felt a wish, from some unaccountable emotion, to impress my cousin with my appearance, and went into my toilette as a warrior into an armory. Scipio's countenance was lit up with joy, when I summoned his assistance; and with much deference he ventured to hope that I would now let the old books rest—that I would sometimes sail in our pleasure boat—that I would look at the Janus colts—that I would let him go with me to our old walks, and that we would be boys again.

So soon as I had descended into the parlor, my mother advancing towards me, led me to a recess in the dormant window; and with much solemnity introduced me in due form to my cousin Isa Gordon! My fair relative was much abashed at the gravity of my introduction, and something like fear checked the furtive glance which was beaming over her countenance. For my own part I was confused, alarmed, and agitated, and trembled beneath that silent eloquence, and impassioned sympathy, which in making woman lovely, ever makes man a fool. To me the situation was painful and singular, for I had never before quailed under the smiles or frowns of female society. I had gained their contempt by apathy; and studiously avoiding the little attentions demanded by the honor of gallantry, I stood among them a heartless being, whose company was tolerated only because his satire was dangerous.

"I am truly happy to see you at Chalgrave," were the first words which were stammered through my confusion!

She blushed more deeply when I had spoken, and was hesitating a reply, when Lucy advancing relieved her from her embarrassment. At the call of my mother they moved across the room, and I was left gazing in mute rapture, at the grace and sylph-like gentleness, which characterized the footsteps of my cousin.

This was Isa Gordon! that morning star which still shines on with purity and brightness over the dark horizon of memory, and which even now pours its bold and mellow light over the dreary waste of my affections. Though not of tall stature, her form was one of exquisite grace and symmetry, and her beauty mingled itself with the eye and memory of the beholder. Her golden locks relieved a blushing cheek, where laughing summer had set its seal, while her countenance expressed a sensibility, intelligence, sweetness of temper and innocence which disarmed flattery, and kindled affection. She was grave more from gentle thoughtfulness than melancholy; and the low, rich and soft music of her voice, stole upon the heart like the swelling cadence of the Æolian harp. To firmness she united delicacy of character, and possessing softness without weakness, humility without arrogance, and beauty without affectation, her life became a rare and happy combination of dignity, elevation and gentleness, with the virtues which ennoble man, and the winning graces which endear woman. She was in all the pride and power of conquering seventeen, yet still no girlishness weakened the unobtrusive dignity of her character. Romance might have decked her with all the gorgeous hues of its fond imaginings. Poetry might have lingered around the silent purity of her life, but reason alone could truly love—and wisdom adore her.

On that day I felt a new passion adding itself to my dreamy solitude; and when I returned to my tranquil room, I found myself the victim of wild and impassioned love, betraying every symptom of its curious and wayward power. I was alternately humble and arrogant—stubborn and infirm—now a gallant cavalier, winning woman's heart by martial prowess—now a finished coxcomb with a plentiful store of that harmless folly which is frittered away from common sense, and now a rhyme stricken poet, drawing inspiration from my own distempered vanity, and struggling for metre in the odds and ends of language. I loved with a holy and fervent ardor; yet the purity which I fondly believed was the characteristic of my passion, was stained into grossness by individual pride. Self love made me a little deity, and woman's regard was an offering demanded by my insatiate egotism. I do not know that I erred more than most young lovers, in thus reasoning from the cause to the effect, and in believing that the existence of love arises solely from our own latent merits and fascinations. Kindness makes us arrogant, while pride deduces from a blush or a smile, positive evidence of woman's unhesitating love. If she reason with the folly of our passion, she is cold—if she shew the least sunshine of tenderness, she is indelicate, and if she exercise the common prudence of a reasoning being, she is a coquette. Man must have all the constancy of her love, all the devotion of her guileless heart, and he alone must mould its delicate texture to the wanton caprice of his own vanity. He grants her all that love which he can spare from the faction and turmoil of the world, and demands in return her esteem for his errors, and her adoration for his infirmities. We treat them as fools, when we breathe our false and treacherous love, and thus cheat ourselves into a belief of our own purity and truth. A woman of dignity will smile at the fantastic tricks which duplicity enacts before her; and if she truly love she will crush our pride by coldness, and blind the searching eye of our vanity by indifference. She risks her total happiness—she nobly throws all her treasured hopes into the scale of marriage, and when once resolved, she hesitates no longer over the trembling sacrifice of her implicit confidence. Man calls the considerations of her judgment insincerity—and the justifiable warfare of defence—coquetry. He loves from pride; while prudence teaches her to inspire him with that true passion, which takes its brightness like the diamond, only from the attrition of its own fragments.

Excited by the influence of my new passion, I became a being of different habits, and boldly entered into the spirit of that social circle whose gaiety I had shunned. The rays of love had beamed athwart the darkness of my solitude, and I basked in their brilliancy till seclusion lost its philosophy and study its excitement. I was happy only in the company of Isa Gordon, and revelled like a martyr, in the funereal pyre, which consumed my tranquillity. With the quick penetration of her sex she perceived my love, and though it hourly disported its vagaries before her, it failed to move either her serenity of temper, or unbend her dignity of character. In her intercourse with me she was courteous, kind and polite, and I vainly labored to find some of those thousand signs of reciprocal attachment with which egotism flatters pride, and with which vanity sustains folly. I thought she was cold and heartless, and have often gazed on her beauty with that chilled rapture which would dwell on the rainbow that lends its glittering canopy to the brow of the glacier.

Time wore away on downy feet, and the period was rapidly approaching when Isa was to leave Chalgrave, and I was to enter college. I dared not breathe my love; for though blinded by excess of passion, I had enough of reason to know that I should be rejected; but could she refuse when I plainly declared my sentiments? My vanity whispered her acceptance, and I believed that her indifference proceeded not from dislike but from my silence on that necessary and important declaration which the pride and pretended ignorance of every woman imperiously demands.

"You are singularly romantic, Lionel!" said she, as I was earnestly employed in repeating some wild stanzas which I had inscribed to the evening star! "What a curious conceit to make it the bridal torch of the moon, and why people it with the genius of light. Many a poet has sighed away his sense in searching for metaphors to exalt it—yet it still shines on, careless of the poor folly which labors to adorn it." "There is destiny in it, Isa! and even now as it arrests your gaze, does it not tell thee of futurity? and does it not give a dreamy melancholy—an incoherent imagining to thy young, thy cold, thy uncorrupted heart?"

"My heart cold!" replied she, smiling, "What a happy poet! In one moment basking in the light of the evening star, and in the next ungenerously censuring a heart of which you know nothing."

"I do know it! I know that you have chilled its better feelings by the dictates of reason, and from long obedience to stern prudence, you cannot, dare not love! You have seen the sincerity of my passion, and you have trampled on the purity of that love which adores you! Hear me, dear Isa," I continued, seizing her hand and arresting her departure, "hear my unworthy love. I am a wretched, desolate being, and live alone."

"Lionel!" said she, suddenly interrupting me, "I do not love you! You have noble qualities, and a genius which promises the highest distinctions of fame. Forget your idle passion, and be assured that I shall ever retain for you the most affectionate friendship. Enter into the busy throng of the world, and you will quickly gain that chastened wisdom which can laugh to scorn all your boyish dreams of romance, and in the race of ambition you must and will forget your fancied sorrows. Is it not true that

"I did not reckon on insult," I replied with much temper, "nor did I wish you to read me a homily on the extravagance of that passion which you alone have caused. You may scorn, yet I can love."

Lucy, accompanied by Arthur Ludwell, appeared at this moment, and relieved me from a scene of distress, confusion, and embarrassment. They returned with Isa to the parlor; and I, in a state of tempestuous feeling and subdued pride, sauntered to the shores of the Chesapeake. A whip-poor-will seated on the leafless branch of a ruined oak, was carolling his funereal notes to the responsive echoes of the forest. The moon was rising far in the East, and the broad sea before me had already flushed its rippled surface in her mellow light. Here and there in the fretted horizon, might be dimly discovered the diminished sail, or the frail bark of the silent fisherman. All nature was slumbering in deathlike solitude, while I alone was the rude string whose vibrations jarred into discord the peaceful scene around me. In the bitterness of wounded pride I solemnly resolved to conquer my unrequited passion. I returned to Chalgrave, proud, stubborn and unconquerable. I looked up to its dreary grandeur and my eye caught the light form of Isa flitting athwart a window. My obstinacy vanished like the mist of the morning, and I was again the creature of love, hope, and imagination.

On the succeeding day she quitted Chalgrave. Her parting interview was simple and affecting. A kiss for my mother—a tear for Lucy, and a smile for me, were the little legacies her affections bequeathed. With strained eye and intense interest, I watched the chariot which bore her away, and when it had sunk into the forest, I turned off to meditate on her virtues and dream on her beauty. My old nurse gently touching me, placed in my hand a little packet which she said Miss Isa had left for me. I tore off the envelope, and a golden locket fell at my feet, on which was inscribed in faint though legible lines, "Dinna forget." That momento is now on my heart—a holy relic of the wreck of my happiness.

TO H. W. M.

LINES

ON THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL OF THE ASYLUM AT HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

AN ELEGY

SONNET.

TO MARY.

THE VISIONARY—A TALE.

Ill-fated and mysterious man! Bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before me!—not—oh not as thou art—in the cold valley and shadow—but as thou shouldst be—squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice—which is a star-beloved elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I repeat it—as thou shouldst be. There are surely other worlds than this—other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude—other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into question? Who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?

It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the Ponte di Sospiri, that I met for the third or fourth time the person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember—ah! how should I forget?—the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the demon of romance, who stalked up and down the narrow canal.

It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta, by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical, and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery, and we were, consequently, left to the guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel. Like some huge and sable-feathered Condor, we were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaus flashing from the windows, and down the stair-cases of the Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom to a livid and supernatural day.

A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the treasure which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad, black marble flagstones, at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the gayest of the gay—the most lovely where all were beautiful—but still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni—and the mother of that fair child, her first and only one, who now deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.

She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls like the young hyacinth. A snowy white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form—but the midsummer and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion—no shadow of motion in that statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet—strange to say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice—but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark gloomy niche too yawns right opposite her chamber window—what, then, could there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in its ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered at a thousand times before? Nonsense! Who does not remember that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far off places, the woe which is close at hand.

Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the Water-Gate, stood in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuied to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have presented to the eyes of the agitated group, a spectral and ominous appearance, as, with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that funereal gondola.

All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child—but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican Prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure, muffled in a cloak stepped out within reach of the light, and pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp upon the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak heavy with the drenching water became unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators, the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.

No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now receive her child—she will press it to her heart—she will cling to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! another's arms have taken it from the stranger—another's arms have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip—her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her eyes—those eyes which, like Pliny's own Acanthus, are "soft and almost liquid." Yes! tears are gathering in those eyes—and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver lilies in the grass. Why should that lady blush? To this demand there is no answer—except that, having left in the eager haste and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own boudoir, she has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers; and utterly forgotten to throw over her Venitian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing?—for the glance of those wild appealing eyes?—for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low—the singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? "Thou hast conquered"—she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me—"thou hast conquered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be."

The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the service of my own, and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the Water-Gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.

There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute. The person of the stranger—let me call him by this title, who to all the world was still a stranger—the person of the stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather than above the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion when his frame actually expanded and belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity—a nose like those delicate creations of the mind to be found only in the medallions of the Hebrew—singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet, and a profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a forehead rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory—his were features than which I have seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had no peculiar—I wish to be perfectly understood—it had no settled predominant expression to be fastened upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten—but forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed at any time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed.

Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him very early the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at his Palazzo, one of those huge piles of gloomy, yet fantastic grandeur, which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into an apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an actual glare, making me sick and dizzy with luxuriousness.

I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bring myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have supplied the far more than imperial magnificence which burned and blazed around.

Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still brilliantly lighted up. I judged from this circumstance, as well as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the decora of what is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to object, and rested upon none—neither the grotesques of the Greek painters—nor the sculptures of the best Italian days—nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the room trembled to the vibrations of low, melancholy music, whose unseen origin, undoubtedly lay in the recesses of the crimson trelliss work which tapestried the ceiling. The senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange Arabesque censers, which seemed actually endued with a monstrous vitality, as their particolored fires writhed up and down, and around about their extravagant proportions. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the whole, through windows formed each of a single pane of crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid looking cloth of Chili gold. Here then had the hand of genius been at work. A chaos—a wilderness of beauty lay before me. A sense of dreamy and incoherent grandeur took possession of my soul, and I remained within the door-way speechless.

Ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!—laughed the proprietor, motioning me to a seat, and throwing himself back at full length upon an ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile myself to the bienseance of so singular a welcome—"I see you are astonished at my apartment—at my statues—my pictures—my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery—absolutely drunk, eh? with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality) pardon me, my dear sir, for my uncharitable laughter. You appeared so utterly astonished. Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was Sir Thomas More—Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also there is a long list of characters who came to the same magnificent end, in the Absurdities of Ravisius Textor. Do you know, however,"—continued he musingly—"that at Sparta (which is now Palæochori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of socle upon which are still legible the letters [Greek: LASM]. They are undoubtedly part of [Greek: GELASMA]. Now at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in the present instance"—he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and manner—"in the present instance I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the same order—mere ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion—is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage—that is with those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one exception you are the only human being besides myself, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts."

I bowed in acknowledgement: for the overpowering sense of splendor and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing in words my appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.

"Here"—he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered around the apartment—"here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtû. They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here too, are some chéf d'oeuvres of the unknown great—and here unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What think you"—said he, turning abruptly as he spoke—"what think you of this Madonna della Pietà?"

"It is Guido's own!" I said, with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. "It is Guido's own!—how could you have obtained it?—she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture."

"Ha!" said he, thoughtfully, "the Venus?—the beautiful Venus—the Venus of the Medicis?—she of the gilded hair?—the work of Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right are restorations, and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. The Apollo too!—is a copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of marble? Then Michæl Angelo was by no means original in his couplet—

It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the true gentlemen, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.

I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation—a degree of nervous intensity in action and in speech—an unquiet excitability of manner, which appeared to me at all times unaccountable, and, upon some occasions, even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in his imagination alone.

It was during one of these reveries, or pauses of apparent abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian tragedy) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act—a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement—a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion—no woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears, and, upon the opposite interleaf, were the following lines, written in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognizing it as his own.

That these lines were written in English—a language with which I had not believed their author acquainted—afforded me little matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery; but the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been originally written London, and afterwards carefully overscored—but not, however, so effectually, as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say this occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a former conversation with my friend, I particularly inquired if he had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without of coarse giving credit to a report involving so many improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak was not only by birth, but in education an Englishman.

"There is one painting," said he, without being aware of my notice of the tragedy—"there is still one painting which you have not seen." And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full length portrait of the Marchesa Aphrodite.

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed downwards to a curiously fashioned vase. One small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth—and, scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois quivered instinctively upon my lips—

"Come!" he said at length, turning towards a table of richly enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be Vin de Barâc. "Come!" he said abruptly, "let us drink! It is early—but let us drink! It is indeed early," he continued thoughtfully as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer, made the apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise—"It is indeed early, but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to the solemn sun, which these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue!" And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.

"To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the magnificent vases—"to dream has been the business of my life. I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are stretching upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist: but that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like these Arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." Thus saying, he confessed the power of the wine, and threw himself at full length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and faltered out, in a voice chokeing with emotion, the incoherent words, "My mistress!—my mistress!—poisoned!—poisoned! Oh beautiful—oh beautiful Aphrodite!"

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid—his lips were livid—his lately beaming eyes were riveted in death. I staggered back towards the table—my hand fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet—and a consciousness of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

PETER'S MOUNTAIN.

The third and last mountain over which the traveller passes, as he proceeds from Fincastle to the Sweet Springs, is Peter's Mountain—here called the Sweet Spring Mountain. This is, on several accounts, one of the most remarkable mountains in Virginia. It is remarkable, in the first place, for the appearance of regularity which it presents to the eye of the traveller, when viewed from the west. It extends sixty or seventy miles, between Jackson river on the north, and New river on the south, apparently in a straight line, and of nearly a uniform elevation. But this is not its whole extent. The mountain north of Jackson river, and that south of New river, are evidently continuations of the same mountain, and exhibit the same unbroken and regular appearance. While on the east there are numerous spurs extending from it in every direction, there is nothing of the kind observable on the west. Were it not for the magnitude of this mountain, its elevation, and its peculiar structure, we might readily have imagined it to be, like the Chinese wall, the work of man, constructed by the line and the plummet, in a former age, as a bulwark of defence, by some hardier race than ours; but these point us to the heavens for its great original.

As we looked back upon it from the valley on its west, our thoughts reverted to the period, when the red men of the forest took up the line of march, and relinquished the east to the peaceable possession of their treacherous invaders. Here, it was natural to suppose, they halted, and pitched their tents, and constructed their villages, and began again to feel as though they were "monarchs of all they surveyed." As they looked upon the mountain behind them, feelings of security would be restored, and they would consider this mountain as a barrier, reared by the Great Spirit for their protection.

"It is true, the white men made them wings—they flapped the winds, and passed over the wide waters, and up the big rivers. They gathered on the plains—they cleared the land, and made it theirs. But their wings were made for the waters, and not for the rugged mountains—and their feet are tender—they cannot encounter the flinty rock. Here, then, shall the waves of pride and oppression be stayed. Here may our wives and our children once more sit them down secure from foes, and build their fires, and gather their nuts, while we chase the deer and the buffalo in the far off west." Such we may suppose to have been the reflections of some savage chieftain, nescius auræ fallacis, as he looked upon the lofty, and seemingly interminable mountain bulwark before him. But, if such they were, they proved deceptive. A few revolving years passed away, and the white man was again on his borders. His track was seen on the mountain, and the stroke of his axe, and the shrill sound of his rifle were heard in the hollows. A few years more, and the Indian again disappeared, and the white man stood in his place—and the green grass grew, and the corn-blade rustled, and the farm house was seen, where once stood the rude villages, in which the chieftains had told the tale of the white man's fraud, and of their own and their father's wrong, and their own and their father's valor.

The circumstance which, more than any other, renders this mountain remarkable, is its intersection with that chain of mountains known as the Alleghany, which divides the waters that flow east into the Atlantic, from those which flow west into the Ohio and Mississippi. At about an equal distance between the Sweet Springs and Peterton, or the Grey Sulphur, the Alleghany dips under this mountain, and emerges again on its eastern side. The principal branches of the James river, head on the west of Peter's Mountain, but east of the Alleghany; while New river, the principal branch of the Great Kanawha, arises far to the east of Peter's Mountain, though west of the Alleghany. The waters of the Warm, Hot and Sweet Springs pass off to the ocean through the James river; while those of the White, Salt, Red and Grey Sulphur communicate with the Ohio, through the Kanawha.

This mountain, though uniform in its outline, is sufficiently variegated in other respects. In some places it sustains heavy forests, and is arable nearly to its summit; while in other places it is nearly denuded, sustaining only a stinted shrubbery. In some places, the large masses of sandstone which project near its summit, exhibit the most grotesque and romantic appearance. In the neighborhood of the Hot and Warm Springs, there are several very picturesque views. There is one in particular, which seen at the distance of three, four or five miles, has the appearance of a village in ruins, with some of its public edifices standing, and numerous villas or country mansions in a dilapidated state, scattered around it. In the skirts of this rocky village, is what appears to be an extensive burying-ground, with its vaults and tomb-stones, protecting the dust of the dead from the unhallowed tread of the living. In other places, the projections are less extensive, and resemble fortified outposts. As one gazes on such scenes, the mind is involuntarily led back to former ages, and the spectator is apt to fancy that he views one of the castles or fortified places, in which were transacted the tragical events of which he had heard or read in the records of a feudal age.

THE DUEL.

"McCarthy is no more!" said George, as I rushed out on learning his arrival from the scene of conflict. "Raymond reserved his fire; then deliberately taking aim, sent his ball through the heart of our gallant friend, who stood firm and undaunted to receive his fire."

"Good God!" I exclaimed, "was there no man present whose humanity prompted him to interpose for the prevention of so murderous a deed?"

"The attempt was made," said George, "but unavailingly. Raymond was the challenged party, and with a savage sternness of purpose insisted on his right, according to the rules which were agreed upon to govern the conflict."

"He is a hardened villain," cried I, "stained with the blood of four victims; and palsied be the hand that has robbed society of so pure and generous a spirit as McCarthy's."

Struck with horror at the occurrence, and overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of so worthy a friend, needing consolation myself rather than capable of affording any, I hurried nevertheless to the house of the deceased, to share, if not to alleviate the sufferings of his bereaved mother and sister. Never, never shall I forget the scene which there awaited me. The lifeless body of McCarthy, weltering in his own blood, lay extended on a large folding table. The ball had entered the right side, and with fatal energy had passed through the body, leaving a corresponding wound on the left. The mother and sister, with disordered hair and the wild expression of maniacs, stood at either side of the corpse, applying their mouths to the wounds from which the blood was still oozing; nor could anything short of absolute violence withdraw them from the body. They wept not—they spoke not; but in all the wild impassioned energy of despair, kept their mouths still applied to the gaping wounds of the son and brother.

The deceased was a young gentleman, who inherited a handsome estate in the south of Ireland. He had but the year before become of age, and returned from Trinity College, where his vigorous understanding and zeal in the pursuit of literature had won for him the first honors of that venerable institution. Frank, generous and beneficent, he seemed intent on applying the energies of his active mind and the resources of an ample fortune, to the moral and physical improvement of his tenantry and dependants. A year of unexampled scarcity, gave him an early opportunity of developing those generous purposes of his pure and elevated mind. To the lower classes of his tenantry he remitted a part of their rents, and to the surrounding poor he distributed provisions, exacting from them in return, only increased attention to cleanliness and neatness in their persons and dwellings. He had besides a large tract of unreclaimed peat land, on which, at proper intervals, he erected comfortable stone dwellings, and let portions of this land to the industrious poor, requiring no rent from them except the application to the soil which they were to cultivate for their own benefit, of some bushels of lime, easily procured from the contiguous quarries. Thus, in a very short period, he effected a perceptible change in the condition of his tenantry, while he was in fact developing new resources for the indulgence of further beneficence. His tenantry already looked to him as a friend and protector; they submitted their difficulties to his arbitration, and applied to him for redress for their grievances, when oppressed or maltreated by any of the petty gentry of the vicinage. In addition to this generous devotion to their interests, McCarthy possessed advantages, which are no where more fully appreciated than among the imaginative and half chivalrous Irish peasantry. With a Moorish head, and face of the finest cast, often met with among the Milesian gentry of Ireland, he had a form developed in muscular and beautiful proportions, much above the common stature, resembling his ancestors in that particular, who from their large and muscular frames, obtained familiarly the appellation of McCarthy Mores. The cordial frankness of his manners too, assured the peasants who approached him, that his was no affected interest in their welfare and happiness. Thus endowed with every quality of mind, heart and person that could win esteem and confidence, was it to be wondered at that he should have become, almost at once, the idol of a warm-hearted and grateful people? Alas! they had too many opportunities of contrasting his kindness and generosity, with the indifference, if not harshness of neighboring landlords; or with the odious oppressions of mercenary agents to whom they confided their estates. To this latter class Raymond belonged; he was one of that wretched faction that so long kept Ireland in degradation. A Palatine by extraction—a member of the Orange Club—distinguished for his zeal in the unholy objects of that mischievous and once powerful association—without fortune and without education, save a limited knowledge of accounts, he possessed cunning and contrivance enough to win his way to the agency of a large estate, belonging to an absentee nobleman, who appeared once in three years among his tenantry, only to exasperate their feelings by walking at the head of an Orange procession. Raymond had a pecuniary claim against one of the humblest of McCarthy's tenantry, and in the hour of his greatest need, was enforcing it with the spirit of a Shylock. McCarthy remonstrated—offered to insure the payment, if he would extend the time until the ripening crop should enable the poor man to meet the demand. Raymond insultingly refused—charged McCarthy with rendering the tenantry of the surrounding country insubordinate to their landlords, and creating discontent among his neighbor's tenantry, by ill-timed indulgence to his own; and intimated in McCarthy a purpose inconsistent with loyalty to his sovereign. Unhappily, instead of inflicting on the miscreant the punishment which his strong arm could so easily have enforced, yielding to a barbarous usage which his better judgment must have condemned, McCarthy sent him a hostile message on the following morning. Proud of meeting such an antagonist—conscious of his unerring dexterity in the use of a weapon which on three former occasions had been fatally true in his hands—and anxious to remove a neighbor whose virtues and whose energy were a painful rebuke, and promised to be a troublesome check on his own views—Raymond gladly accepted the challenge, and dictated through his friend, as vindictive as himself, the terms of the combat. The result is known; and long shall the impressions made by that result, leave their traces in the breasts of the inhabitants of Kenmare. Amidst the general sorrow for what was regarded as a public bereavement, there was one heart on which it fell with a blight that withered every joy, and dried up at its very source the fountain of every hope. The mother and the daughter were privileged in their wailings; but there was one, who had received from him only the first evidences of newly kindled love, but who, silent and unobserved, had reposed on that evidence, slight though it was, all that she hoped for of earthly felicity. It was Ellen—to whom an expression of tenderness which her love made her interpret aright, and a hurried earnestness of manner in his last adieu, had whispered that the heart in which she had unconsciously garnered up her happiness, reciprocated a feeling which she strove to conceal even from herself. Daily intercourse with both, too plainly told me that the world contained but one being capable of interesting Ellen. I saw the wasting of a flame, which I feared would consume her; and believing her every way worthy of my noble-hearted friend, I sought to fix his attention on the charms of her person, and the elegance and purity of her mind, without wounding his delicacy by an intimation that I believed he had any hold on her affections. At first his mind was so occupied with schemes for ameliorating the condition of his tenantry, that they seemed to render him indifferent to all besides. The natural enjoyments of his age and station seemed to be shut out by these thoughts; and it was only when the approach of the fatal rencontre with Raymond caused him to look more closely into the recesses of his own breast, that McCarthy felt that Ellen was not to him an object of indifference. He sought her presence the evening before his fall. There was in his manner that which told the watchful eye of a lover that her love was returned. Yet he breathed no word of love—he sought no pledge of affection, lest the event of the morrow should pierce too deeply a heart which he now felt he would not wound for the world. Leaving to other friends the task of consoling, if possible, the distracted relatives of the deceased, I sought the home of Ellen. I found her alone; she started wildly on seeing me.

"Is it true?" she exclaimed; "is he dead? Say, is McCarthy dead?"

"It is too true, Ellen," said I; "our friend—our generous, noble-hearted friend, has fallen by the hands of a privileged assassin."

"Friend!" said Ellen impetuously, "he was to me—" and checking herself in the expression which to me was not necessary to convey what she meant, she sunk back, relaxed and colorless, into her chair; her bosom heaved as if contending with a tide of emotions—she sobbed hysterically, and at last found temporary relief in a flood of tears.

Poor Ellen, alas! the relief was but temporary. The wild tide of passionate sorrow, it is true, subsided soon; but it had left deep furrows in the broken heart of Ellen, which time could not efface. Her spirits sunk daily; her beautifully rounded figure became lank and attenuated; her eye lost its lustre, and she shrunk instinctively from the gaze of all, as if anxious to hide the secret of that grief which was consuming her. Her physicians recommended change of air and scene; they were tried—but no scene had a charm, no air had a balm for poor Ellen.

Twelve months rolled by, and a gloomy pageant was seen passing through the streets of Kenmare; that pageant was conducting to the family vault, the lifeless remains of Ellen Mahony.

The fatal ball which drank the life's blood of the generous McCarthy, broke also the heart of Ellen. Nor were they the only victims immolated on the altar of a false honor. The mother of McCarthy sunk prematurely into the grave; and his lovely sister continued to manifest for many years, by occasional fits of melancholy madness, the severe shock which her heart and understanding had received from the premature fall of an idolized brother.

The pursuit of professional knowledge called me far away from the scene of these occurrences. The fate of McCarthy and Ellen presented itself less frequently to my mind, occluded by new scenes and avocations. In 1818, six years after the fatal catastrophe, I returned to visit, for the last time, my relatives in Kenmare. Mary, the lovely sister of my murdered friend, bereft of every nearer relative, was residing with her uncle, a distinguished officer of the Irish Brigade, who with a constitution broken down by the fatigues of an eventful life, had retired to a small estate near the lakes of Killarney. I owed it to the memory of my deceased friend, to visit the last surviving object of his affection. The day was full of freshness and beauty, and the country through which I must travel to reach the seat of Colonel McCarthy, is not surpassed by any in the world, in the wild grandeur of its scenery. The road from Kenmare winds along a chain of lakes, now narrowing into deep channels, hurrying precipitously their angry and foaming waters into reservoirs below—now expanding into broad and silvery inland seas, studded with verdant islands, blooming with Arbutus and Lauristina. From the unruffled surface of these lakes, you behold reflected, as from an expanded mirror, the images of the over-hanging mountains, wooded to their tops, and varying in the hues of the dense foliage that covers them with every varying stratum of soil, from their bases to their summits. The high and threatening Turk Mountain yields its reluctant base to the winding road. The beautiful Peninsula of Mucrus is seen in full view. Its venerable Abbey, still exhibiting traces of its former grandeur, containing within its sombre walls the slumbering remains of many a gallant knight and gentle maiden, of the humble and the great, in indiscriminate oblivion. The proud mansion of the Herberts, still in fine keeping—the long vistas opening in every direction on some cultivated villa or rich demesne; the town of Killarney, with its spires and undulating lines of white buildings; the mansions of the Kenmares, the Cronins, and O'Connells,—all seen in distant perspective, afford a coup d'oeil unsurpassed in beauty and natural munificence by any in the world. As I revisited these scenes which my boyhood loved to trace, there stole upon my heart a melancholy joy; it was indeed "pleasant but mournful to the soul." The friends with whom I had enjoyed these scenes were gone, or hurried far apart by the varying engagements of busy life. To one of those friends this journey was devoted, and his virtues and his fate rose before me in vivid colors. The tear rose unbidden to my eye, and dimmed for awhile the bright scene before me. Thus attuned to melancholy, I approached about ten o'clock the residence of Colonel McCarthy. The modest but tasteful dwelling was situated on a small eminence in the centre of a basin, formed by a hill in the rear, and two projecting wings, open and expanding to the south and southeast, having in full view before it the ancient castles of Dunloe and Desmond—the beautiful lower lake and its crowning ornament, the island of Innisfallen—Ross, the majestic castle of the O'Donoghues—and to the right the bold Mountain of Tornies, with its foaming cataract, appearing to the distant eye like the giant guardian of the place, with his silvery beard flowing on his venerable breast. The grounds were tastefully laid out, and the regularity and order that was observable in all the decorations of the place, gave evidence of a superintending mind trained to discipline; while the surrounding scenery bespoke it an appropriate refuge for the warrior worn with toil and years.

As I approached, I beheld a female form sitting on a little eminence to the right of the house, which was decorated with a cluster of white pines. I could not mistake the light and graceful form of the beautiful Mary. It was she, much as I had beheld her six years before. Her large blue eye had the same wildness of expression which was observable in it after the death of her brother; her figure was if anything more beautiful, set off by a dress which she had selected in the wild imaginings of her sorrow, to fit her in a special manner for communion with the spirits of her mother and brother; her hair was loose, but carefully combed, flowing gracefully on her shoulders; her bust was incased in a plain white spencer, most studiously fitted to her person; and she wore hanging in loose folds around her, a pure and virgin white drapery, that was rivalled by the pellucid whiteness of her uncovered neck, hand and arm. This dress, as I afterwards learned, she always wore when the mind gave way before periodical melancholy; and its approach was too truly announced by the cautious vigilance with which she was observed to hide from her friends the preparations for her strange attire. As I approached, I saw too plainly that Mary had no thought for any object before her.

"Mary," said I, "do you not know me? do you not know E——, the friend of your brother?"

"Oh yes," said she, keeping her eye steadily fixed as on some object towards the lake. "Yes, yes," said she in a hurried manner. Then placing her soft hand gently in my arm, she said, "Go, good spirit, go; I want my mother and Sandy. See, they are coming; Mary will yet have a mother and brother."

I spoke, I reasoned, I entreated her to come with me into the presence of her uncle.

She replied with a hysterical laugh, and said, "He too is gone with them."

I turned towards the house, and all there seemed silent and full of sorrow. The Colonel's servant, with eyes swollen from weeping, replied to my inquiries about his master, that he had that morning expired, having for some days suffered intensely from the effects of his old wounds.

"And who," said I, "remains to give consolation to the poor and forlorn Mary?"

"Ah," said John, "Miss Mary is always light when any sorrow comes on the family. The Dunloe family are coming here to take Miss Mary home with them."

"God grant," said I, "she may be soothed by their kindness. Has she no attendant, John?"

"Yes sir, but my poor master said it was best not to trouble her when she is in her strange way."

I wound my way back slowly and mournfully from this house of sorrow. I have since passed from scene to scene; I have witnessed the agonies of many a breaking heart, and have been myself the subject of much sorrow and anguish; but never did I witness blight and desolation equal to that brought on the house of McCarthy by the murderous hand of Raymond.

Henry County.

LINES.

MY NATIVE HOME.

MEMOIR OF THE AMBITIOUS LAWYER.

Will your honor hear me through, before you pronounce sentence.—Old Play.

I was the son of a country clergyman, who, passionately fond of literature himself, determined to send me into the world with a good collegiate education. I went through the course of study at the University of ——, studied hard, graduated with considerable distinction, and was very fully impressed with the idea that I was a youth of fine parts and acquirements. On leaving college, I determined to spend a twelvemonth in recreation and amusement, before I entered upon the study of a profession.

On my first introduction into the society of the active world, I expected of course, to command that homage to my superior talents and acquirements which I thought I so richly merited, and which was so willingly awarded by the young men at the University of ——. But I was not only treated with indifference, but contempt. I soon acquired the character of a conceited coxcomb—a dogmatist without knowledge or talents. Few of the enlightened part of the community condescended to converse with me on equal terms; my challenges for argument, in order to discover my abilities, were disregarded: and I had the mortification of having the reputation of a fool, without the opportunity as I thought, of correcting the impression. This treatment determined me to anticipate the time I had allotted for the commencement of the study of a profession. The consciousness that I possessed talents, and the illiberal treatment I conceived I had met with from the world, excited within me, an ambition of the most corroding nature. I was determined to extort from an envious world, that respect which I believed was so unworthily withheld. I had a restless desire to chalk out my fortunes unassisted. With a single eye to my purpose, I placed myself somewhat in a hostile attitude to the world. Such was the uncompromising nature of my pride, and such the ill-judged confidence in my own abilities, that I enjoyed no man's friendship, and sought the patronage of none. In two months after I left the University of ——, I purchased a few books, and commenced the study of the law. For two years, I gave the most unremitting, untiring attention to my books. Many nights did I toil over the dry pages of Coke, until the east was streaked with the approach of returning day. Many times was my mind so far absorbed, by intense and abstract thought, that I have been forced suddenly to throw down my books and count the tiles on the roof of the house, to recall my aberrated thoughts and prevent absolute derangement. There is always an exhilaration of feeling which attends mental excitement, that renders the life of a student happy; and, while my health remained unimpaired, my hours of study passed pleasantly away. But intense application began to affect my health, and consequently my spirits; a melancholy sat continually on my "faded brow." I became unhappy, without then knowing why; yet I never lost sight of my unalterable resolve, to make those crouch to my importance, who had once spurned me from their presence. Occasionally the idea would recur, "would it not be better to return to my social feelings, unbosom myself to my relatives, and be content with the good opinion of those with whom I associated;" but pride and ambition would soon silence such intimations of my better nature, and goad me on to the attainment of my object at any sacrifice. In looking back through a period of more than threescore years, I can distinctly recollect that sullen pride, that mortified but unsubdued ambition which shut me out from the pleasures of social intercourse, and "preyed like the canker worm, on the vitals of my repose."

On perceiving the decline of my health and spirits, my father, with little persuasion, prevailed on me to take out license and commence the practise of my profession. By devotion to my studies, I had acquired such a knowledge of the elementary works, as enabled me to pass a sustainable examination before the judges of ——. In the twenty-first year of my age, on the twenty-fifth day of October, with my license in my pocket, I set out for a distant county court. It was a fine morning; the air was bracing, but not cold. When I had mounted my horse, and set off in a brisk trot, on a level and beaten Virginia country road, I felt an exhilaration that the novelty of my purpose and the healthy nature of my exercise was well calculated to inspire. It is needless to inform the reader of the multifarious and never realized visions of distinction and applause, that my heated brain formed that day. There is something rather enervating in the young dreams of love; but the early visions of ambition instil an ardor into the soul, which nerves the faculties to the most daring enterprize, or the most laborious undertaking. Both, however, heighten self-respect, and diffuse a pleasing tranquillity over even excited feeling.

The crowd had already gathered when I reached the court house of ——. The political rivals had commenced haranguing the mob; the shrill cry of the Yankee pedler vendueing his goods, the hoarse laugh of the stout Virginia planter, the neighing of horses, the loud voice of the stump orator, and the menaces of county bullies, met for the purpose of testing their pugilistic talents, broke upon the tympanum in no agreeable confusion. Here was a group collected around a decapitated cask of whiskey, emptying its contents to the health of favorite candidates; there a collection eyeing with eagerness two combatants encircled in a ring, struggling for the acclamation of "the best man." At a respectful distance stood the man of authority, the Virginia justice, commanding the peace; but his vociferous interference only met with the response of "Hands off: fair play!" In this promiscuous assemblage, every grade of society in the county was represented. Here was the rich, unpopular aristocrat, with his lofty bearing. The representatives of old, and once rich and aristocratical families, who had left nothing but a name for their posterity, were here mingling familiarly with the plebeian herd, seeking popularity as the only step-stone to political eminence. Here was seen, also, the rich demagogue—the people's man—the frequenter of militia musters, the giver of good dinners, without distinction of guests. Here, also, was the substantial two hundred acre freeholder. Of the most conspicuous "minora sidera," the Kentuckian horsedrover, the horsejockey, the ganderpuller, might be mentioned. I soon passed this congregated mass, and reached the bar. One of the fraternity was kind enough to introduce me to the court and his professional brethren. It is useless to describe my sensations during the continuance of that term of the court. I was, generally, either entirely unnoticed, or treated with marked contempt. So undeserving and discourteous did this treatment seem, that I asked an old lawyer, who appeared rather more affable than his brethren, what it meant; he smiled, and whispered that every young lawyer, and particularly a college lawyer, was, prima facie, a fool, until he showed the contrary. I profited so much by this rough response, as to resolve to push my own way, without soliciting favor, and careless even of common courtesy.

After about four months attention to my courts, I found a world of difference between the life of a student and a lawyer. The one deals with his fellow at the most confiding and innocent age; the other deals with every variety of character, and meets with every grade of vice. When I first discovered with what a cold and selfish set of creatures I had to mingle, I became melancholy, disgusted with my profession and every thing attached to it. The fearful thought came over my mind to turn scoundrel, and manage the world in its own way; to "carve it like an oyster"—"to ride mankind as Pyrrhus did his elephant." But my better nature prevailed, and I determined to persevere in the difficult task of mingling with mankind and preserving my principles uncontaminated by the contact.

When we reflect what a trivial occurrence alters one's fortunes, we are ready to conclude that life is a complete game of hazard, and man the creature of circumstances. If it had not been for a singular accident, I might have toiled on through the prime of my existence, without success in my profession, and deserted it after my glittering youth was spent, a disappointed and pennyless misanthrope. I took a small "tide of fortune at its flood, and it led to glory." It was twelve months from the time I took out license, that I was touched on the arm by a stranger, who asked me if I was not Owen the lawyer? I told him I was; he then retained me to defend him in a prosecution against him for forgery, and added, that my general celebrity as a criminal advocate, had induced him to employ me. The application was of a kind so new to me, (for I had never been spoken to either for counsel or defence) that in the agitation of the moment I did not discover that I was mistaken for a lawyer of some eminence, of the same name, who attended the same court. As soon as he left me, cool reflection came, and I was convinced that I had been retained through mistake. I immediately went in search of the forger, to suggest the mistake. I met with him among a number of by-standers and a few members of the bar. As soon as he saw me, he accused me of practising a fraud upon him, by designingly confirming him in his error. I immediately turned from him, remarking that I could be no gainer by altercation with a forger. But from the reception that his charge met with among some of the by-standers and lawyers, I was impressed with the conviction that they either believed, or affected to believe, the accusation of the forger. I concealed my chagrin as well as I could until his trial came on, and availing myself of the invitation of the prosecutor to assist him, I made a speech containing the bitterest invective and perhaps the best argument that I have ever made since. As soon as I look my seat I observed approbation or envy on every countenance that met my eye, for the criminal was very opprobrious to the multitude. He was convicted by the unanimous voice of the court. I was congratulated on every side on the success of my "maiden effort," and by numbers of the obsequious crowd who previously withheld from me even the ordinary civilities of life.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, No. II. containing Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1835.

We hailed with pleasure the appearance of the first number of the Crayon Miscellany, but we knew not what a feast was preparing for us in the second. In Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, the author of the Sketch Book is at home. By no one could this offering to the memories of Scott and Byron have been more appropriately made. It is the tribute of genius to its kindred spirits, and it breathes a sanctifying influence over the graves of the departed. The kindly feelings of Irving are beautifully developed in his description of the innocent pursuits and cheerful conversation of Sir Walter Scott, while they give a melancholy interest to the early misfortunes of Byron. He luxuriates among the scenes and associations which hallow the walls of Newstead, and warms us into admiration of the wizard of the north, by a matchless description of the man, his habits, and his thoughts. The simplicity and innocence of his heart, his domestic affections, and his warm hospitality, are presented in their most attractive forms. The scenes and the beings with which Sir Walter was surrounded, are drawn with a graphic pencil. All conduce to strengthen impressions formerly made of the goodness and beneficence of Scott's character, and to gratify the thousands who have drawn delight from his works, with the conviction that their author was one of the most amiable of his species. No man knows better than Washington Irving, the value which is placed by the world (and with justice) upon incidents connected with really great men, which seem trifling in themselves, and which borrow importance only from the individuals to whom they have relation. Hence he has given us a familiar (yet how beautiful!) picture of Abbotsford and its presiding genius; but the relics of Newstead, which his pensive muse has collected and thrown together, brightening every fragment by the lustre of his own genius, are perhaps even more attractive. He touches but a few points in Byron's early history, but they are those on which we could have wished the illumination of his researches. The whole of the details respecting Miss Chaworth, and Byron's unfortunate attachment to that lady, are in his best manner. The story of the White Lady is one of deep interest, and suits well with the melancholy thoughts connected with Newstead. An instance of monomania like that of the White Lady, has seldom been recorded; and the author has, without over-coloring the picture, presented to his readers the history of a real being, whose whole character and actions and melancholy fate belong to the regions of romance. In nothing that he has ever written, has his peculiar faculty of imparting to all he touches the coloring of his genius, been more fully displayed than in this work.

We give a short extract from each of these sketches, although they can afford no idea of their collective charms. The conversational powers and social qualities of Sir Walter Scott, are thus described:

"The conversation of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dramatic. During the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather than the grave, in his anecdotes and stories, and such, I was told, was his general inclination. He relished a joke, or a trait of humor in social intercourse, and laughed with right good will. He talked not for effect or display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of his memory, and the vigor of his imagination. He had a natural turn for narration, and his narratives and descriptions were without effort, yet wonderfully graphic. He placed the scene before you like a picture; he gave the dialogue with the appropriate dialect or peculiarities, and described the appearance and characters of his personages with that spirit and felicity evinced in his writings. Indeed, his conversation reminded me continually of his novels; and it seemed to me, that during the whole time I was with him, he talked enough to fill volumes, and that they could not have been filled more delightfully.

"He was as good a listener as talker, appreciating every thing that others said, however humble might be their rank or pretensions, and was quick to testify his perception of any point in their discourse. He arrogated nothing to himself, but was perfectly unassuming and unpretending, entering with heart and soul into the business, or pleasure, or, I had almost said folly, of the hour and the company. No one's concerns, no one's thoughts, no one's opinions, no one's tastes and pleasures seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot for a time his vast superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all was over, that it was Scott with whom they had been on familiar terms, and in whose society they had felt so perfectly at their ease.

"It was delightful to observe the generous mode in which he spoke of all his literary cotemporaries, quoting the beauties of their works, and this, too, with respect to persons with whom he might be supposed to be at variance in literature or politics. Jeffrey, it was thought, had ruffled his plumes in one of his reviews, yet Scott spoke of him in terms of high and warm eulogy, both as an author and as a man.

"His humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from all causticity. He had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but he looked upon poor human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what was good and pleasant, tolerating what was frail, and pitying what was evil. It is this beneficent spirit which gives such an air of bonhommie to Scott's humor throughout all his works. He played with the foibles and errors of his fellow beings, and presented them in a thousand whimsical and characteristic lights, but the kindness and generosity of his nature would not allow him to be a satirist. I do not recollect a sneer throughout his conversation any more than there is throughout his works."

It is more difficult to fix upon an extract from the sketch of Newstead Abbey, but we take the following as coming within the limits of our notice:

"I was attracted to this grove, however, by memorials of a more touching character. It had been one of the favorite haunts of the late Lord Byron. In his farewell visit to the abbey, after he had parted with the possession of it, he passed some time in this grove, in company with his sister; and as a last memento, engraved their names on the bark of a tree.

"The feelings that agitated his bosom during this farewell visit, when he beheld around him objects dear to his pride, and dear to his juvenile recollections, but of which the narrowness of his fortune would not permit him to retain possession, may be gathered from a passage in a poetical epistle, written to his sister in after years.

"I searched the grove for sometime, before I found the tree on which Lord Byron had left his frail memorial. It was an elm of peculiar form, having two trunks, which sprang from the same root, and after growing side by side, mingled their branches together. He had selected it doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and himself. The names of BYRON and AUGUSTA were still visible. They had been deeply cut in the bark, but the natural growth of the tree was gradually rendering them illegible, and a few years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this record of fraternal affection.

              *               *               *               *               *

"At a distance on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of Lord Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked his own destiny with that of the tree. 'As it fares,' said he, 'so will fare my fortunes.' Several years elapsed, many of them passed in idleness and dissipation. He returned to the abbey a youth scarce grown to manhood, but as he thought with vices and follies beyond his years. He found his emblem oak almost choked by weeds and brambles, and took the lesson to himself.

"I leaned over the stone ballustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon the valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning, which always seems to have a hallowed influence over the landscape, probably from the quiet of the day, and the cessation of all kinds of week day labor. As I mused upon the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the man whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of bells from a village a few miles distant, came stealing up the valley. Every sight and sound this morning, seemed calculated to summon up touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried!

"I have since visited his tomb. It is in an old gray country church, venerable with the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath the pavement, at one end of the principal aisle. A light falls upon the spot through the stained glass of a gothic window, and a tablet on the adjacent wall announces the family vault of the Byrons. It had been the wayward intention of the poet to be entombed with his faithful dog in the monument erected by him in the garden of Newstead Abbey. His executors showed better judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes to the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his mother and his kindred.

              *               *               *               *               *

"How nearly did his dying hour realize the wish made by him but a few years previously in one of his fitful moods of melancholy and misanthropy:

"He died among strangers, in a foreign land, without a kindred hand to close his eyes, yet he did not die unwept. With all his faults, and errors, and passions, and caprices, he had the gift of attaching his humble dependants warmly to him. One of them, a poor Greek, accompanied his remains to England, and followed them to the grave. I am told that during the ceremony, he stood holding on by a pew in an agony of grief, and when all was over, seemed as if he would have gone down into the tomb with his master.—A nature that could inspire such attachments, must have been generous and beneficent."

THE CONQUEST OF FLORIDA, by Hernando de Soto; by Theodore Irving. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard.

There is so much of romance in the details of Spanish conquests in America, that a history of any one of the numerous expeditions for discovery and conquest, possesses the charm of the most elaborate fiction, even while it bears the marks of general truth. These adventures occurred during the age of chivalry, when danger was courted for distinction, before the progress of science and literature had opened other avenues to renown, and when personal valor was looked upon as the pre-eminent quality—skill in arms as the highest accomplishment of an aspiring spirit. No nation was more celebrated during that chivalrous age than Spain, and in none did the genius of chivalry longer resist the influences under which it finally fell into decay. Upon the discovery of America, a wide field was opened for the warlike spirit of the age, and Spain sent forth her hosts of adventurers, filled with wild visions of boundless wealth, and the easy conquest of the barbarian nations of those golden regions. There are in the histories of their exploits, so many displays of dauntless courage—of skill in overcoming difficulties—of the power of a few disciplined warriors, to contend successfully with hosts of equally brave, but untutored savages—and so many exhibitions of the generous qualities of the soldier, that in the glare of brilliant achievements, and the excitement of thrilling incident, we are tempted to overlook the injustice and cruelty which marked the footsteps of the conquerors.

Mr. Irving's work is one of great interest. The conquest of Florida by De Soto, while it is contrasted with the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, (which immediately preceded it) in regard to its results to those engaged in it, resembles it in the patient suffering and indomitable bravery of the adventurers, and in the numerous thrilling scenes through which they passed. While the conquest of Mexico enriched the followers of Cortez, and poured the wealth of the new world into the lap of Spain, that of Florida proved fatal to all who attempted it, and ended in disaster to the ultimate conquerors. Ponce de Leon, the visionary, who sought in Florida the Fountain of Youth, Vasques de Ayllon, the ruthless kidnapper, and Pamphilo de Narvaez, the well known rival and opponent of Cortez, had made fruitless attempts to colonize this disastrous coast. But the last and most splendid effort of that day, was made by Hernando de Soto, a cavalier who had served with Cortez, and had returned to Spain in the possession of immense wealth derived from the spoil of Mexico. The enjoyment of the highest favor at the court of his sovereign, the charms of a young and lovely bride, and the allurements of his splendid position at home, were insufficient to repress the spirit of adventure which he had imbibed in the wars in Mexico, and the prevalent belief that Florida presented a scene for conquest still more magnificent than Mexico. De Soto was doomed to prove that the golden dreams of wealth with which the unexplored regions of Florida had been invested, were baseless illusions. But his adventures and achievements afford a rich mine of romantic incidents which Mr. Irving has presented in a most attractive form:

"Of all the enterprises," says he, "undertaken in this spirit of daring adventure, none has surpassed for hardihood and variety of incident, that of the renowned Hernando de Soto and his band of cavaliers. It was poetry put in action; it was the knight-errantry of the old world carried into the depths of the American wilderness: indeed, the personal adventures, the feats of individual prowess, the picturesque descriptions of steel-clad cavaliers, with lance and helm and prancing steed, glittering through the wildernesses of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and the prairies of the Far West, would seem to us mere fictions of romance, did they not come to us recorded in matter-of-fact narratives of cotemporaries, and corroborated by minute and daily memoranda of eye witnesses."

Hernando de Soto was in every respect qualified for the task he undertook in this ill-starred expedition. But the Floridian savage was a more formidable foe than his Mexican brother—more hardy of frame, and more implacable in his revenge. Hence, although the imagination is not dazzled in the conquest of Florida, with descriptions of boundless wealth and regal magnificence—although the chiefs are not decked in "barbaric pearls and gold"—their sturdy resistance, and the varied vicissitudes created by the obstacles which nature presented to the conqueror's march, afford numberless details of great interest. The book abounds with thrilling passages, from which, but for the crowded state of our pages, we should make a few extracts. Whether it is the merit of the writer or his subject, (probably it is a combination of both,) which gives to this work so much fascination, we will not decide; but it is scarcely possible to commence it, (at least we found it so) and lay it aside until its perusal is concluded.

CHANCES AND CHANGES; a Domestic Story, by the author of "Six Weeks on the Loire." Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard.

This is an uncommon book. In these days of high excitement and powerful writing, it is refreshing to be introduced among characters of so much purity, benevolence and intelligence as those delineated in "Chances and Changes." The moral of the book, although it is not ostentatiously pressed upon the attention, is obvious and forcible. A lovelier being than Catherine Neville, the heroine, can scarcely be imagined. There is nothing new in the story—the events are such as might easily be supposed to have occurred, and the leading features of the plot may be stated in a few words: Colonel Hamilton, a man of fashion and something of a roué, is engaged in a duel with a baronet, in consequence of an intrigue between the Colonel and the titled wife of his antagonist. The latter is dangerously wounded, and Colonel Hamilton seeks a refuge for several months in the remote dwelling of his former tutor, Mr. Neville, a benevolent and conscientious clergyman. Hamilton becomes enamored of Catherine Neville, who returns his passion with all the ardor of a first love. He at length mingles with the world of fashion again, is involved once more in his former intrigue, and although struggling to retain and deserve the affections of Catherine, becomes completely entangled in a criminal attachment. Catherine, after a long and painful conflict with her feelings, resolves to conquer her ill-placed affection, and is ultimately united to a worthier object. The struggles between passion and duty in her breast, and the conflict of good and evil in Hamilton, are admirably portrayed. The sentiments and opinions are often striking, and the style elegant and attractive. We give a few extracts, taken at random:

"Come along with me," said she, "come and look by the side of the little stream that runs through the garden."

"This girl, after all, can do whatever she likes with me," thought Hamilton, as he rose with affected effort, from the chair which he had just before vowed to himself nothing should induce him to stir from, until it was time to dress for dinner. Away they went to the brook, and found Mr. Neville standing there, looking at the daffodils with all the delight of the poet whose words were on his lips.

Hamilton was so unused to hear Wordsworth quoted in any other tone than that of ridicule, or absurd parody, that he was amazed to hear his old tutor, whose taste he revered, not more from habit than experience of its correctness, repeat these lines with the enthusiasm of Catherine herself, and conclude them with a panegyric on their author, as having formed a new school in poetry, and finding

              *               *               *               *               *

"Well, sir, what do you think of our daffodils?" said Mr. Neville, pointing to them exultingly, "are they not enough to inspire a poet?"

"I am not poet enough to answer the question," said Hamilton, "but I remember the eldest of poets says they make very good salads."

"Ah ha!" said Mr. Neville, "I am glad you have not forgotten old Hesiod—but, however, I did not think of getting into Greek when I quoted Wordsworth."

"Nor I of hearing anything like common sense spring out of a quotation from him," said Hamilton. "Not but that all he says may be very fine, but I am of another school—I am a Byronian—he is the only man that is read in Town—those Lakeists that go and make faces at themselves on the waveless waters, and then run home to put their reflections upon paper, are quite outvoted now; even the ladies never think of them."

"No, I suppose not," said Mr. Neville, "any more than they would think of seeing hay-makers in their verandas, or a sheep-shearing in their drawings-rooms. But 'the children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light,' and he who sings of nothing but lawless crimes, and sated vices, does wisely to address his song to the inhabitants of an overgrown and luxurious metropolis."

"Yes, yes; he is sure enough of sympathy, plenty of dancing daffodils there,—only of rather an opposite species. What do you say, Miss Neville, do you like the titled Bard?"

"Quite well enough, as a poet, to wish he had made choice of better subjects. Edward Longcroft says he has in him a fragment of almost every other poet's distinguishing excellence, but unfortunately his own genius is only a fragment itself, and, therefore, he produces nothing but fragments after all."

"Very wise in Mr. Longcroft—I dare say he could prove every thing he says most mathematically; but I fancy he will find the generality of his acquaintance admire diamond sparks more than brick-bats—though one is only a part, and the other a whole."

"Very good! very good!" said Mr. Neville, "but who have we here?" he added, as he looked towards the little gate. "Ah ha! here he is himself—now we can have diamond sparks versus brick-bats, as long as you like, and see who has the better of the argument."

A matter-of-fact-man is well portrayed in the following:

"Henry Barton," said she to herself, "is a good creature, as ever was born; and he has great merit, too, in cultivating his mind so sedulously, surrounded as he is only by the clodpoles his father has brought him up amongst. But, after all, he is such a mere matter-of-fact-man, that one soon tires of him—he tells one an anecdote just as he reads it, and there's an end of it. And then he moralizes, too, in such a common-place way, and wonders how the Romans could degenerate so as to suffer themselves to be conquered by the Goths, and finds out that it was an abominable thing in Henry VIII to cut off his wives' heads, and not much better in Queen Elizabeth to sign Essex's death warrant. There is no play of imagination about him—no whim, no wit—he would as soon think of launching a man of war, as maintaining a paradox."

The subjoined sentiment is beautifully expressed:

"Ah, is there any happiness like that of the affections! from the soul-absorbing influence of individual love, through all the endearing gradations of natural ties, and selected friends, down to the generalized claims of our fellow-creatures: it will ever be found that all our real enjoyments are solid only as the feelings of the heart are connected with them; and long after the traces of external objects may be effaced from the memory, the kindly sentiments and participated feelings, with which they may have been connected, remain indelible in the interior recesses of the breast, which they fill with a sweet indistinctness of recollected enjoyment."

And how much truth in Catherine's criticism of Byron:

"I cannot feel the beauties of any poetry whatsoever," said Catherine, "when I think the poet has no feeling himself—I have admired many passages in Lord Byron's earlier works, even to enthusiasm; but when I came to his most unfeeling mockery of the agonizing sympathies he had raised in his description of a storm, by the odious levity with which he concludes it, I closed the book, and never read another page of his writing. I thought of it ever after as of those monstrosities in painting, of beautiful heads, and cloven feet, and it inspired me with the same disgust."

North American Review, No. LXXXVIII: July 1835.—The last number of this periodical contains several admirable articles. We subjoin a list of its contents:

Art. I. A Tour on the Prairies, by the author of the Sketch Book.—II. The American Almanac for the year 1835.—III. Memoirs of Casanova.—IV. Machiavelli.—V. Life and Character of William Roscoe.—VI. Mrs. Butler's Journal.—VII. Dunlap's History of the Arts.—VIII. Slavery; an Appeal in favor of that Class of Americans called Africans, by Mrs. Child.—IX. Audubon's Biography of Birds.-X. Webster's Speeches.

The first article is a noble eulogy on the genius of Washington Irving, well according with the merits of the writer, and the honest pride which every American feels in the possession of such a luminary in our native literature. Great as has been the praise lavished upon his works, we feel with the reviewer that full justice has not as yet been accorded them—and it is with pleasure we perceive that the world at large is becoming more alive to his merits. The following rapid glance at the various triumphs of his genius, will be read with a general concurrence in its truth:

"Compare him," says the reviewer, "with any of the distinguished writers of his class of this generation, excepting Sir Walter Scott, and with almost any of what are called the English classics of any age. Compare him with Goldsmith, one of the canonized names of the British pantheon of letters, who touched every kind of writing, and adorned every kind that he touched. In one or two departments, it is true, that of poetry and the drama—departments which Mr. Irving has not attempted, and in which much of Goldsmith's merit lies—the comparison partly fails; but place their pretensions, in every other respect, side by side. Who would think of giving the miscellaneous writings of Goldsmith a preference over those of Irving, and who would name his historical compositions with the Life of Columbus? If in the drama and in poetry Goldsmith should seemed to have extended his province greatly beyond that of Irving, the Life of Columbus is a chef d'oeuvre in a department which Goldsmith can scarcely be said to have touched; for the trifles on Grecian and Roman history, which his poverty extorted from him, deserve to enter into comparison with Mr. Irving's great work, about as much as Eutropius deserves to be compared with Livy. Then how much wider Irving's range in that department, common to both the painting of manners and character! From Mr. Irving we have the humors of cotemporary politics and every-day life in America—the traditionary peculiarities of the Dutch founders of New York—the nicest shades of the school of English manners of the last century—the chivalry of the middle ages in Spain—the glittering visions of Moorish romance—a large cycle of sentimental creations, founded on the invariable experience—the pathetic sameness of the human heart—and lastly, the whole unhackneyed freshness of the West—life beyond the border—a camp outside the frontier—a hunt on buffalo ground, beyond which neither white nor Pawnee, man nor muse, can go. This is Mr. Irving's range, and in every part of it he is equally at home. When he writes the history of Columbus, you see him weighing doubtful facts in the scales of a golden criticism. You behold him, laden with the manuscript treasures of well-searched archives, and disposing the heterogeneous materials into a well-digested and instructive narration. Take down another of his volumes, and you find him in the parlor of an English country inn, of a rainy day, and you look out of the window with him upon the dripping, dreary desolation of the back yard. Anon he takes you into the ancestral hall of a baronet of the old school, and instructs you in the family traditions, of which the memorials adorn the walls, and depend from the rafters. Before you are wearied with the curious lore, you are in pursuit of Kidd, the pirate, in the recesses of Long Island; and by the next touch of the enchanter's wand, you are rapt into an enthusiastic reverie of the mystic East, within the crumbling walls of the Alhambra. You sigh to think you were not born six hundred years ago, that you could not have beheld those now deserted halls, as they once blazed in triumph, and rang with the mingled voices of oriental chivalry and song,—when you find yourself once more borne across the Atlantic, whirled into the western wilderness, with a prairie wide as the ocean before you, and a dusky herd of buffaloes, like the crowded convoy of fleeing merchantmen, looming in the horizon, and inviting you to the chase. This is literally nullum fere genus scribendi non tigit nullum quod titigit non ornviit. Whether anything like an equal range is to be found in the works of him on whom the splendid compliment was first bestowed, it is not difficult to say."

The articles on Machiavelli, and on the life of Roscoe, are both excellent in their way. The former has particular attractions, as it is a luminous disquisition on the character and writings of one who for ages was an enigma in the political and intellectual world, whose works, like those of Dante and Faust, have been interpreted by opposing critics in the most conflicting manner, and whose name, error and prejudice handed down from century to century, have rendered synonymous with all that is crafty and corrupt in the art of government.

The notice of Mrs. Butler's work is the best we have seen. The reviewer performs his task with redoubtable good humor. The gentleness with which he calls the lady to account for her literary offences, and the hearty tribute of praise he bestows on the best portions of her work, show that he is determined to

But the review of Mrs. Child's ill-judged appeal on the subject of slavery, has for us a more powerful attraction than any in the number. It is not possible that we should be witnesses of the momentous occurrences of the day, and not feel most sensitively every reference to a topic in the discussion of which all that we love and reverence is involved. The impatient zeal of pretending enthusiasts, who in the pursuit of what to them seems good, disregard the frightful evils which their blind impetuosity may produce, cannot but awaken in those upon whom these evils must fall, a trembling anxiety for the future, and an indignant resentment against the madmen who are blindly jeoparding the peace of the country and the lives of thousands. We cannot trust our feelings upon this subject. We see too clearly the horrors in perspective, which fanaticism is preparing for us, and we humbly hope that the results of its insane excess, may be averted. The reviewer in the North American, thinks and feels correctly on this subject, and we regret that we can only make room for the closing passages of his remarks:

"That we must be rid of slavery at some day, seems to be the decided conviction of almost every honest mind. But when or how this is to be, God only knows. If in a struggle for this end the Union should be dissolved, it needs not the gift of prophecy to foresee that our country will be plunged into that gulf which in the language of another, 'is full of the fire and the blood of civil war, and of the thick darkness of general political disgrace, ignominy, and ruin.'

"There is much error upon this as well as other subjects, to be corrected, before the public can act deliberately or wisely in relation to it. It is too common to associate with the slave-holder the character of the slave-merchant. And we regret to see the abolitionist of the day seizing upon the cruelties and abuses of power by a few slave-owners in regard to their slaves, in order to excite odium against slave-holders as a class. This is alike unreasonable and unjust. Very many of them are deeply solicitous to free the country of this alarming evil, but no feasible means by which this is to be accomplished has yet been offered for their adoption. Such denunciations are no better than the anathemas of fanaticism, and ought to be discountenanced by every well wisher of his country. The subject of slavery is one, in regard to which, more than almost any other, there are clouds and darkness upon the future destinies of these states. It is one upon which all think and feel more or less acutely, and it is moreover one upon which all may be called upon to act. It is, therefore, we repeat, with regret that we see intellects like that of Mrs. Child, and pens like hers, which may be otherwise so agreeably and beneficially employed, diverted from their legitimate spheres of action, and employed in urging on a cause so dangerous to the union, domestic peace, and civil liberty, as the immediate emancipation of the slaves at the South."

American Republication of Foreign Quarterlies.—The London, Edinburg and Westminster Reviews for April, 1835, have been republished by Mr. Foster, in his cheap and valuable series of periodicals. The Edinburg Review contains an article on American Poetry, in the course of which a general glance at the literature of this country is taken; and a more favorable opinion expressed of its achievements than that work has hitherto entertained. This fact is worthy of remark, when it is recollected that the taunting query, "Who reads an American book?" emanated from that journal not many years since. The most attractive articles in the Westminster, are those upon "Lucy Aiken's Court of Charles II," and "Dunlop's Memoirs of Spain." To us, an article in the Quarterly on "Maria, or Slavery in the United States, a picture of American Manners, by Gustave de Beaumont, one of the authors of a work on the Penitentiary System in the United States"¹—"The Stranger in America, by F. Leiber," and "New England and her Institutions, by one of her sons," is the most attractive in the April number. The work of M. de Beaumont has not, as we have heard, been translated or republished in this country. His views of our manners and institutions are exhibited in the form of a novel, which the Quarterly declares to possess considerable interest, and to display in parts a large share of the true genius of romance, notwithstanding that the incidents are few and the commentaries copious. The author declares in a preface, that "though his personages are fictitious, every trait of character has been sketched from the life, and that almost every incident in his tale may be depended on as a fact that had fallen under his own observation." The reviewer is somewhat scandalized at the author's avowal of "his belief that the democratic system of government, as now established in America, is the best machinery that ever was invented for developing the political independence and happiness of mankind," and endeavors to show that M. de Beaumont's strictures upon our manners and condition (and he cannot be charged with undue lenity in his censure) are inconsistent with that avowal. The reviewer makes copious extracts from the work, which show that the author is disposed to censure severely the condition of the colored population in this country, without a fair consideration of the circumstances which produced it. But we can scarcely judge of the book from the extracts in the review, which are probably the most unfavorable that could be found, as the reviewer displays a strong desire to draw from the opinions of the French author, support for the assertions of English travellers.

¹ "Marie, ou l'Esclavage aux Etas-Unis, Tableau de Moeurs Americaines par Gustave de Beaumont, l'un des Auteurs de l'ouvrage intitulé Du Systeme Pénitentiare aux Etas-Unis."

MY LIFE, by the author of Tales of Waterloo, &c. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1835.

This is the production of a lively and spirited writer. He describes skirmishes, onslaughts and battles, with the familiarity of one who has not seldom taken a part in such actions—traces the Irish character with great fidelity, and best of all, his book abounds in humorous incidents. The contre-pieds between the hero and his cousin, "Jack the Devil," are admirably detailed. Jack is a rare specimen of the Wild Irishman, and we have seldom been more amused than we were with the history of the scrapes in which he involved himself and his cousin. The battle of Waterloo is sketched briefly, but with a graphic pen. The last struggle of that day, when Ney led the Old Guard to the charge, and the description of the "field red with slaughter," after the work of death had concluded, give evidence of the painting of an eye-witness.

BELFORD REGIS, or Sketches of a Country Town, by Miss Mitford. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1835.

Like "Our Village," these are delightful productions, abounding with wholesome satire of folly and prejudice, and displaying in strong relief the humble virtues of retired life. Some of the characters are conceptions of great loveliness, and many of the scenes are wrought with most pathetic effect. The story of Hester is admirable. We have seldom dwelt with more delighted interest over a picture of juvenile virtue and self-devotion.

EDITORIAL REMARKS.

We have but a few words to offer upon the contents of the present number. Generally they must speak for themselves; but in regard to others we may be permitted a passing comment.

No. II of the Dissertation on the characteristic differences between the sexes, sustains the high character of the first number. And although the branch of the subject—Religious Differences—which the author has discussed in the present number, seems to promise little amusement for the general reader, it will be found upon perusal, to have been so ingeniously treated, so beautifully illustrated, that even he who entirely eschews polemics, will be edified and delighted. It was upon this point that we felt the most solicitude for the success of the writer, for there is no part of his subject so difficult to manage, or in which he was so liable to fall below the expectations of his readers. But he has overcome its difficulties, and presents us with a disquisition, entirely free from the narrowness of sectarian views, and deeply grounded in the philosophy of the human mind. His view of the religion of woman is accurate and beautiful,—her proneness to lean on the strength of a more powerful being, her confiding nature, her facility in believing where man cavils and doubts, and the tendency of her religious sentiments to degenerate into superstition, contrasted with the besetting evils of man's religious faith—bigotry and fanaticism—are admirably portrayed. His illustration of this contrast is clear and convincing, whilst his style throughout is easy and attractive. He seems to have drawn the true inspiration from his subject, and is doubtless a believer in the doctrine of the ingenious Biron—

Grayson Griffith is a religious story. We approve of the moral, as a matter of course—who will not? But we do not come quite up to the writer's standard of perfection, for we candidly confess we cannot see the germs of perdition in a social game of whist; and while we detest gambling and gamblers, the proscription of amusements innocent in themselves, because some remote analogy may be traced between them and practices at once immoral and every way destructive, seems to us irreconcileable with sound logic or true philosophy. The attempt to trace the vices of men to early habitudes is not always successful, as the power of good or evil impressions over the mind and habits, is essentially modified by the character of each individual. Besides, accident often determines the destinies of men, so far as we can see, in very spite of every previous tendency. We doubt, for instance, whether the fascinations of the faro-table would not have been as great to Grayson if he had never seen a card, as they proved to be, as related in the story. But we are getting into the discussion of a question which requires more time and space than we have to spare.

The "Letter on the United States, by a Young Scotchman," is generally amusing; but some of the passages in it strike us with surprise. He tells us that, "although the Americans are great novel readers, there is too much matter-of-fact about them; they are too calculating and money-making [this from a Scotchman!] to serve the purposes of the novelist. They form but indifferent heroes and heroines of romance, and hence Cooper is obliged to resort to the sea to rake up pirates and smugglers, or to go back to the revolution or the early settlement of his country to find characters and incidents calculated to give verisimilitude and interest to his tales." This seems to us hasty and jejune criticism. Cooper was not, as we know, "obliged" to rake up pirates and smugglers; but as this writer has told us in the ninth number of the Messenger, "He (Cooper) had been for some years an officer in the American Navy, where he acquired a knowledge of all the minutiæ of nautical life, which was of great service to him in the composition of some of his tales. These are justly considered as his best"—and he might have added, are written with power peculiar to Cooper, of whom it may truly be said:

And well would it have been for his fame had he never abandoned his proper element. On shore he generally makes as awkward a figure as one of his nautical heroes would do, after a voyage, before he had gotten rid of his "sea legs." We have read Cooper's last, the Monikins, but at too late a period to allow a regular notice of it in this number. En passant, however, we must say that it is an entire failure—vapid, pointless, and inane. It appears to be an attempted satire on mankind, a bungling imitation of Swift's account of the Houynhmins, Mr. Cooper's monkies are a tedious race, and his Yankee captain, "Noah Poke," the principal interlocutor, as the lawyers would term him, is little better. We believe that all who have read this work, will agree, that the sooner its author is "obliged" to take again to salt water, and "rake up pirates and smugglers," the better it will be for his own reputation, and the purses of his booksellers.

In regard to the poetry of this number, we must content ourselves with drawing attention to the pathetic effusion "on the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Girl."

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Many favors have been again unavoidably postponed. The communication of Scriblerus exhibits talent, and is written well, but is not adapted to the pages of the Messenger. The writer would doubtless succeed upon other subjects, and we invite him to make the experiment. "A fragment of the thirteenth century," has held us in doubt for some days; but we have finally decided upon its exclusion. We are not better pleased with the poetry of Timandi, than with his prose.

The quantity of rhyme poured in upon us, is indeed a matter of admiration. The effusions which we consign to outer darkness monthly, are past enumeration. Such, for instance, as one containing the following lines, and which purports to be "copyed from a young ladies Album"—

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